Naylor Jono: Electoral (Adjustment of Thresholds) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNaylor Jono: Electoral (Adjustment of Thresholds) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 24 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4738. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JONO NAYLOR (National): Thank you for the opportunity to be able to rise and take a call on this bill. If there was ever a bill that was an answer looking for a problem it seems to me that this is it. Actually I am surprised that the member who has brought this forward given his Midas touch history with members’ bills actually has wasted the opportunity on such a bill. But there you go. I guess we have got to put anything forward that we think may get somewhere.There are three main parts of this legislation and I want to address each of them in turn. The first one is the reduction of the threshold from 5 percent down to 4 percent. I have got to say that neither in reading the background nor the introduction to the bill nor in any of the arguments that I have seen put forward today have I heard any plausible rationale for that. You could argue that 5 percent is in fact just a random number to some degree and that there is not necessarily particular meaning attached to 5 percent; but neither is there any meaning to 4 percent. So if we are going to change it from 5 percent to 4 percent then why are we not changing it to 3 percent? Or perhaps the Conservatives might like 3.6 percent after last time? It has equal meaning to say 3.6 percent 2 percent 4 percent 5 percent—to me there is nothing specific that really says that we need to pick just another random number.In fact when we look at the other countries around the world that use a proportional system there is a wide range of numbers that are used. Actually the most common number used is 5 percent but they vary anything from 10 percent in Turkey down to 0.67 percent in the Netherlands. From my perspective until I hear a specific rationale that says 4 percent is somehow more of a magic number than 5 percent and is one that is convincing to me—and yes I have seen some arguments; what I am saying is that I am not convinced by them—that is an important part of it.Arguably Germany has got a very system operating. A lot of people talk about the success of the German MMP system and it uses 5 percent. Yes its threshold is three seats to our one seat in terms of the seat threshold perspective but what you have got to remember of course is that Germany has 631 seats in its Parliament. So proportionately the three-seat threshold in Germany is far lower than the one-seat threshold in the system we use in New Zealand.When it comes to abolishing the one-seat threshold—coat-tailing as others have described it—initially I did have some sympathy for this. You know when you look at the 2008 example that has been used at face value to some people it does seem unfair and at face value it could seem unfair. However I think that unless you are going to do away with thresholds altogether in terms of percentages actually they are really important. If a person from a party by winning their seat finds themselves in Parliament it seems absolutely ludicrous to me that other people from their party if they have achieved some level of proportionality above the one seat allocation should not be there. There is no justice in excluding them if the party is in Parliament. So I think there is no reason that I can see to do away with that if it is about fairness because whichever way you cut the cake there is always going to be some argument against fairness. There is no perfect system; we have just got to get the best system we can.In fact I have heard it argued plenty of times over the years when we have had parties represented in Parliament that have not even actually managed to win any seats. It seems a little bit weird to me that sometimes we have parties represented—yes they might have got 5 percent or 6 percent of the vote—but none of the people in their party were able to win an electorate seat. Some people have said that perhaps we need to have at least one seat plus whatever percentage you get. There are all sorts of permutations that we could come up with but I do not think that discussing this bill any further is going to take us any further.Finally it says in this bill that we should review it every 3 years—to put that in legislation.Iain Lees-Galloway: No after 3 years.JONO NAYLOR: Every three elections—sorry my correction.Iain Lees-Galloway: After three elections. Not every three elections; after three elections.JONO NAYLOR: After three elections there should be a review. Well I am quite confident that any Parliament will take a review if and when it is required. At the moment I do not see the need for us to change anything and—