Ideas@TheCentre
Australian bicameralism helps bed down reform
Luke Malpass |
26 March 2010
The answer to all these questions is probably yes.
And although these aspects of MMP are problems in themselves, the overall nature of the switch from unicameral First Past the Post (FPP) to unicameral MMP is the real problem. What’s more, it is the way unicameralism has allowed governments to act before and after the change that has resulted in the need for a referendum in 2011 to decide the future of the electoral process in New Zealand.
The difficulty with FPP was that policies could be changed too quickly and in a blitzkrieg type manner. The reforms during 1984–93 were necessary, painful, but highly beneficial. New Zealand’s reforms were further, faster and broader than those in Australia, but to use a cliché, perhaps slow and steady wins the race.
However, the political and social fallout of New Zealand’s reforms means that a liberalising, market based policy direction – is unacceptable to large sections of the population today. FPP unicameralism rendered unnecessary the need for the long process of public education and acceptance.
And although MMP has made the legislative process a bit more difficult and the quality of the laws worse, there has been no shortage of parties in Parliament to overturn or undermine key parts of New Zealand’s liberalising reforms and raise tax and regulation.
Whether the reforms needed to be done at the pace they were, it was the ability to do so quickly has made bedding them down difficult. This contrasts with Australia where there is a widespread acknowledgment of the continued need for economic reform, at a pace determined by the checks in the Senate (recent stimulus policy excepted).
New Zealand had 10 years of fast reforms, policy purity, and coherence under FPP; Australia took it more slowly because it was compelled to do so by its Senate. It takes time for water to sink into stone. Australia has now had 25 years of consistent, albeit slower, economic reform than New Zealand, which started well but spent much of the past 15 years going backwards.
If New Zealand hopes to get into the same economic growth and policy league as Australia, discussing a return to bicameralism would be a good start.
Luke Malpass is a Policy Analyst at The Centre for Independent Studies. Superseding MMP: Real Electoral Reform for New Zealand by Luke Malpass and Oliver Marc Hartwich was released this week.
