By Tess Bartlett - Rethinking Crime and Punishment

dominant feature of New Zealand society during the post­war years should be morereflected in the democratic process. The Royal Commission was required to considerchanges to the electoral system as well as ‘other parliamentary and politicalarrangements’ (The Royal Commission on the Electoral System, 1986: 1) and, in1986, received submissions from the public, many of which concerned the First Pastthe Post (FPP) electoral system that was in place at this time (The RoyalCommission on the Electoral System, 1985). Members of the public held concernsabout the seemingly unfair system whereby a political party, which had received themost electorate seats but not necessarily the majority of the votes, could come topower. After the submissions were received and analysed, the Royal Commissionrecommended the adoption of a Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system. TheCommission also recommended that changes take place only after a lengthy publicdebate and only with ‘the approval of a majority of votes at a referendum’ (TheRoyal Commission on the Electoral System, 1986: 65). The referendum had thusbecome in itself, a major part of the electoral reform process.After eight years of political debate surrounding MMP, due in part to the mainpolitical parties opposing the idea of electoral reform, the public made the finaldecision in 1993 by way of a Citizens Initiated Referendum (CIR). Here, 54 percentof voters selected a transition to MMP. In the MMP system each voter has two votes;one for a party and one for a constituency MP. It is the party vote that determines theorganisation of parliament (Palmer, 2006b). This system was thought to offer awider range of representatives to parliament and would, therefore, offer a moreaccurate representation of society. By this time, however, insecurities that had arisenduring the 1980s meant citizens were hoping electoral reform would bring aboutgreater political accountability and responsibility, rather than simply reflectNew Zealand’s fairness and egalitarianism which lay behind the initial motives(Vowles, Aimer, Catt, Lamare, & Miller, 1995). In effect, the use of the CIR and thechange to MMP was a way of showing citizens that local MPs would now have to bemore attentive to their wishes.For those citizens who felt disillusioned by government, the introduction of theCitizens Initiated Referendum Act 1993 provided them with the opportunity to havea more direct influence on government. It gave citizens the opportunity to participate37