Chester Borrows: National forced to cut a deal

week is a long time in politics, and it can seem even longer for some of us. The machinations of MMP mean that unless one party gets more than half the seats available, there will need to be a deal done to ensure "confidence and supply" - in other words, that the Government will be able to keep supplying the money to run the country and its budget won't get voted down.

The upshot of that would be another election, because votes are traditionally taken at various times through the term of a Government, including when the Government moves its budget each May. The leader of the Opposition always opposes the motion moving the budget and moves a counter that there is no confidence in the Government. The Prime Minister needs to outvote this counter from the Opposition or the Government fails and the country goes back to the polls.

It seems an indictment on MMP, then, that after the best result of any Government since 1951- obviously the best result under MMP - we were still a week forming a Government and maybe another week forming a Cabinet. It is nevertheless unsurprising, given the German example, where after 17 MMP elections there has never been a majority Government.

One of the most frustrating aspects of MMP is the impact on policy these confidence-and-supply agreements between parties have, which invariably involve either a watering-down or beefing-up of policy which the major party campaigned on and the adoption of other policies which were not the priority of the biggest party that was most popular with the voters. A smaller party can dream up a policy that seems very popular with the voters but is largely uncosted because it seemed a good idea at the time the minor party put it up and they needed the traction in the polls such a policy would offer. It then becomes the job of the majority party to sell the policy it never owned and in some cases may have considered and rejected for good reason.

Of course, one option would be to try and run the Government without confidence and supply agreements at all, but that would be impossible and lead to anarchy within weeks if not days as those minor party leaders and those in Opposition did all they could to undermine the new Government and by stifling its ability to supply money and make laws.

So the deals are getting done and certain sector groups in particular will pour scorn on any new policy which sees the light of day. Those who voted against the incoming Government will say there is no principle in making such deals, ignoring the fact that rejecting them would mean putting the country through another election. In this case, the Opposition making these claims has also suffered its worst loss since 1919, and there is no suggestion that another election would show them in any better light.

The David Shearer versus David Cunliffe road show will happily put the Labour Party in the news for another week and this time for selecting a leader and not dumping one. The two represent different backgrounds, histories and experience which are not reflective of Labour Party membership. Both need to sell themselves to a party which does not easily understand their philosophy or align with their views, as it would be a long time since either paid a union membership, struggled to pay the family grocery or power bill, or walked through the doors of a Government agency or public hospital seeking assistance.