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“The ruling National Party only narrowly holds onto power, political parties are fragmenting and MPs are scrambling for fewer seats. But there is so much confusion that New Zealand may not be able to organize a general election for at least another year — an unusual situation for a country which has had continuous and stable Westminster-style representative democracy since 1855.”

But two decades later, New Zealanders have got used to it, said Jennifer Curtin, a professor and political scientist at the University of Auckland. In fact, 58 per cent were happy enough with the new system in 2011 that they voted in a referendum to keep it.

New Zealand’s electoral system was mentioned several times in Attorney General David Eby’s report and recommendations on electoral reform in B.C.

In 1985, following two elections in which New Zealand’s Labour party got more votes yet fewer seats in parliament than the National Party, a commission was formed to study other ways of voting. It unanimously recommended mixed-member proportional the following year.

When the government held a non-binding referendum in 1992, asking voters whether they wanted to keep first-past-the-post or ditch it, 85 per cent voted for change. A second question on the ballot asked them to choose one of four new systems. Overwhelmingly, New Zealanders chose MMP (70 per cent), over single-transferable vote (17 per cent), preferential voting (seven per cent) and supplementary-member systems (six per cent).