It's party-vote time, folks

By COLIN JAMES

It's that time again. They're after your vote. It's the one day in three years you get to be in charge - just for two ticks, though.

Take your pick of labels. It's the first national election of the new millennium. It's the third election using MMP, the complicated system borrowed from the Germans. It's Helen Clark's first election as Prime Minister. It's the election that was genetically modified by the Greens.

It was called, Clark said, to give her Government a renewed mandate, though she still had five months of the old one to run and had the numbers in Parliament.

Put less kindly, it was called because the polls were running hot for Labour and she thought she could get a majority.

That way she wouldn't have to deal with the pesky Greens, who on May 23 walked out of a vote in Parliament on the moratorium on the commercial release of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and restated their determination to bring down any government which allowed the moratorium to expire on its due date in October 2003.

So GM became the most talked-about issue of the campaign. Then came two bombshells - a new organisation headed by Sir Peter Elworthy dedicated to extending the moratorium and a book by conspiracy campaigner Nicky Hager alleging GM contamination of corn and a Government cover-up.

That took the gloss off Labour's poll ratings.

By the middle of last week the party no longer had majority poll ratings.

That might have been attributable to GM. Certainly, the Greens' support continued climbing and 7 per cent told the Herald-DigiPoll late last month that GM would "absolutely" determine how they would vote and half of that 7 per cent declared for the Greens.

But polls say GM hasn't been the No 1 issue in voters' minds.

Instead, the hardy perennials of health, education and law and order have been tops.

Or trust. Helen Clark has invited you to judge her and her Government on how she has kept her word, given in 1999. This is the blank-cheque argument. Her signature is enough.

For Bill English the election has been a test of character. The old wisdom of elections has been that an underdog major party will pick up during the campaign: 1978, 1981 and 1996 are classic examples.

Instead from the day the election was called, National's poll support slid. Mr English tried to counter this by declaring himself a "new leader", with "new energy" and "new commitment", leading a "new National".

But many non-Labour voters didn't hear. They explored the new-looking Greens, a renewed Winston Peters and even an old Act.

So this has set up a much more interesting contest than looked likely in May.

Then it seemed scarcely more than an issue of whether she could, with Jim Anderton, get a majority or would be captive to the Greens.

Many National supporters were contemplating voting Labour to finesse the Greens.

Now, as election day approaches, it is a more complex equation.

If those tactical National supporters figure Helen Clark is unlikely to get a majority even if they vote Labour, they might give up and go back to National.

And that might also pull some of the wanderers back from the second-rank "threshold" parties.

And then Helen Clark, if she wins but falls short of her majority, may have two or even three parties to deal with: the Greens, sure, but also New Zealand First and maybe even Peter Dunne's United Future.

Is this what you want, another government in thrall to small parties?

Pre-MMP elections were about electing or throwing out governments. But the theory of MMP is that you vote for the party you most want and the parties work out who runs the government and what its constraints are.

And to vote for the party you most want you focus on your party vote. It's the party vote that counts, as the folks at the Electoral Office keep saying.

If you haven't got it, don't be embarrassed. A lot of MPs haven't got it either. Look at all the billboards promoting MPs for electorates.

That's fine for Mr Dunne, who must win his Ohariu-Belmont electorate for his party to have any seats. Thus also for Laila Harre in Waitakere or Willie Jackson in Tainui if the ailing Alliance is to win seats. And for Merepeka Raukawa-Tait in Wairarapa for Christian Heritage.

Then there's Wigram, on which Jim Anderton must renew his mortgage for his Progressive Coalition to be in Parliament.

Since 1997 Tauranga has been in the same boat. In 1999 New Zealand First got back into Parliament courtesy of one of Winston Peters' nine political lives - his 63-vote majority in Tauranga.

This year, before New Zealand First's dramatic poll rise during the campaign, that promised to make Tauranga voters the most important in the nation. By putting Mr Peters back or not, they might decide whether Helen Clark could get a majority.

If New Zealand First, the Greens, Act and United Future are all in Parliament, Labour and Mr Anderton (who are effectively campaigning as a government) need around 48 per cent for a majority.

That's because votes for very small parties which don't win seats go in the MMP wastebin.

This cuts the percentage of "effective votes" a party or grouping must get for a majority.

If that "wasted vote" totals 5 per cent a little over half of the remaining 95 per cent "effective vote" - that is, 48 per cent - will give a majority.

If Act or New Zealand First were also (as now seems unlikely) to fall below 5 per cent, to, say, 4 per cent and not win seats, that would swell the wasted vote to 9 per cent and leave an aspiring government needing only a little more than half of 91 per cent - that is, 46 per cent for a majority.

You get the drift. But how on earth are you as a voter to work out what to do?

Well, it's your party vote and you can cry if you want to.

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