New Zealand Election 1999

It is often said that a week is a long time in politics and this was certainly true several times over during the three weeks after the 1999 New Zealand Election was held. The political future of the country was somewhat in the balance after the results on the night came through, with much depending on the results of special votes in certain key electorates and on the party votes overall.

Results for each electorate and for the Party vote can be viewed at: www.electionresults.govt.nz

On the results as known on the Election night there was a clear swing to the left, giving a Labour and Alliance coalition a 63 seat majority Government. Watching the results on television was a rather painful experience because counting was so slow. I flicked backwards and forwards between TV1 and TV3 listening to the various experts predicting what the early results meant and every time having to qualify their statement by saying how their predictions were meaningless anyway because (for example) only 3% of the votes were in so far.

This was caused firstly by there being two referenda held at the same time, with those papers put in the same box as the election papers. They should have been in separate boxes. The second problem was that they not only had to sort those papers out, but they had to count them on the same night. They should have been counted at a later time, as those results were not as important as the election. It doesn’t take a Zen Master to come to those conclusions so there has been some deserved criticism leveled at those responsible.

So the results trickled in interminably slowly for about 4 hours until finally enough was known for Jenny Shipley to concede defeat. The swing to the left was enough to form a new Government, but it was not yet known exactly what parties would be involved.

The Green Party needed co-leader Jeanette Fitsimmons to win the Coromandel electorate or to get over 5% in the party vote, in order to be represented in Parliament. The electorate battle see-sawed all night
until finally Murray McCully (National) came out ahead by about 160 votes, and the Green Party party vote finished at a frustratingly close 4.89%. Green Party voters and candidates had a roller coaster ride right up until the end only to finish up missing out both ways.

Meanwhile in Tauranga Winston Peters (New Zealand First) and Katherine O’Regan (National) were in a similar see-saw, with everything for NZ First depending on Peters winning as their party vote was languishing at around 4%. In the end he won but with a very slim majority, and took four other NZ First MPs into Parliament with him.

A lot was depending on the special votes then, but Labour and the Alliance went ahead and drew up their coalition agreement, making much of the fact that it fit on one sheet of paper, and took a little over one week. This is in contrast to the nine weeks after the 1996 election that it took National and NZ First to come to an agreement that required a foot high stack of papers – at least it would have made a good fire starter for some Wellington pensioners 18 months later.

With the special votes counted not only did Jeanette Fitsimmons win Coromandel, but the Greens got to 5.2% of the party vote, so that they now have seven MP’s in Parliament. Winston Peters held on to Tauranga by 63 votes (after a recount) so NZ First held on to their five seats.

The losers of that turn around have been Labour
(losing two seats) and the Alliance (losing one seat), who together now have 59 seats, and no longer a clear majority. With Jonathan Hunt taking the role of Speaker they have 58 and now form a minority Government with a pledge of support on supply and confidence from the Greens, who will otherwise be pushing their own agenda, as will NZ First and Act.

The Greens have said that they are committed to making this, the first New Zealand centre-left coalition Government, a success for MMP. It seems the political stability of New Zealand over the next three years is going to rely heavily on the good will of a wide variety of people and their commitment to making MMP work. Any failings of the new Government are sure to be exploited by those advocating a return to FFP (First Past the Post). A positive step towards a longer term stability has been that the Greens have formalised (in writing) their arrangement with the Government.

Now hanging in the balance is the final result for Rangitikei where 120 votes went missing on Election Night and where National has a 293 vote majority, and which may yet have to be decided with a bye-election. There is also a report of 37 votes missing in Mangere (held comfortably by Labour).