Some answers

A few weeks ago I did a post about things we still don't know. I talked about some questions we still have about life in New Zealand, two-plus years in.

Would you believe that in the last week, two answers to my questions have arrived in the post??  It's as if the post office is reading this blog.  Creepy.

I talked about New Zealand's confusing parliamentary system, and specifically how I had no idea what MMP stands for. Then this arrived in the mail:

This helpful pamphlet explains that there is a referendum coming up on November 26th (election day) and that voters will be asked if they want to keep MMP or change to a new system.  On the back, in an apparent admission that many people will have no idea what the orange man is talking about, it explains what MMP is.  It stands for "mixed member proportional".  The orange man explains:

This is the system we currently use to elect our Parliament.

There are 120 Members of Parliament (MPs).  There are 70 electorates, including the Maori electorates.  Each elects one MP, called an Electorate MP.  The other 50 MPs are elected from political party lists and are called List MPs.

Each voter gets two votes.  The first vote is for the political party the voter chooses.  This is called the party vote and largely decides the total number of seats each political party gets in Parliament.  The second vote is to choose the MP the voter wants to represent the electorate they live in.  This is called the electorate vote.  The candidate who gets the most votes wins.  They do not have to get more than half the votes.

Under current MMP rules, a political party that wins at least one electorate seat OR 5% of the party vote gets a share of the seats in Parliament that is about the same as its share of the party vote.  For example, if a party gets 30% of the party vote it will get roughly 36 MPs in Parliament (being 30% of 120 seats).  So if that party wins 20 electorate seats it will have 16 List MPs in addition to its 20 Electorate MPs.

Coalitions or agreements between political parties are usually needed before governments can be formed.

Finally, a succinct explanation.  This fills in so many gaps in my understanding.  Thank you, Electoral Commission.

I also asked, "How much will I be charged for this ambulance ride?"  This, too, has been answered via letter in our postbox:

I love the apologetic tone of the letter, where it says, "Unfortunately, because the Government only partly funds us to attend medical emergencies, we have to charge you ..."  I'm pretty sure this is the most sheepishly written bill we've ever received.  And we are only too happy to pay it.  Sixty seven dollars!!!  I doubt that will even cover their gas (it's more than $2 a litre here now... that's about NZ$7.50 per gallon.  So quit your whining about gas prices, fellow Americans!  Ya hear?  $7.50!!)