The Royal Commission on the threshold

I've been browsing the report of the Royal Commission on the Electoral System over the last few days, and found something worth noting. As people may recall, the Royal Commission originally recommended that New Zealand's version of MMP use a 4% threshold. They regarded a lower threshold as likely to endanger "effective government" - something that has both been proven false by subsequent developments in our political culture, and which is a highly dubious goal anyway (lest anyone forget, "effective government" gave us the Revolution. Consensus government under MMP stopped it). As for a higher threshold, this is what they said:

[W]e view a 5% threshold as too severe. Under such a proposal a party would need almost 100,000 [now 114,000 - I/S] votes to gain one list seat. In our view this would, in New Zealand, be too great an obstacle to the development of new and emerging political forces.

Naturally, Parliament overwhelmingly opted for a higher threshold, with only 13 MPs out of the 78 present opposing it (Hansard here). Its difficult to see this as anything other than an attempt by the two major parties to prevent the development of those "new and emerging political forces". Back in 1993, they were afraid of political competition - and likely still are.

As we've seen, a proliferation of small parties does not prevent Parliament from functioning. Rather, it ensures that more people are represented. The existence of the threshold undermines this. It also undermines one of the most important processes in a democracy: the rise of new parties to replace the old. Many political scientists are worried that the threshold is a recipe for de facto oligarchy, with new or breakaway parties facing a completely artificial barrier to representation and public visibility. The barriers are not as high as they were in the days of FPP - but when the aim is to ensure that as many viewpoints as possible are represented, they should not be there at all.

As for how to fix this, it would be nice if the government was to pick up the torch of electoral and constitutional reform again - but I don't expect that to happen. Which leaves us with the option of a Member's Bill. Unfortunately, these aren't really the right tool for the job: changes to the electoral system should be floated early and widely debated by the public, not literally drawn out of a hat to be voted on in a fortnight. OTOH, public debates don't come from nowhere, and putting forward such a bill would be a good way to start one.