The Campaign for Electoral Reform

In the early 1970s a number of submissions suggesting modifications to, or replacement of, First-past-thepost were made to the Electoral Act Select Committee, including Single Transferable Vote and two forms of the Supplementary Member system incorporating both a constituency and a party vote. Both the Royal Commission’s report and the Electoral Reform Coalition’s dogged campaign were essential to the ultimate adoption of the Mixed Member Proportional electoral system by the New Zealand electorate. The Royal Commission provided the framework on which a campaign for electoral reform could be built; the Electoral Reform Coalition kept the issue before the public at a time when politicians were intent on defusing the report’s recommendations. The Campaign for Better Government tried to recruit British MP, Brian Gould, who had been a member of the British Labour Party’s working party on electoral reform. Although Gould was in New Zealand before the referendum, personal factors prevented him from entering into the public debate.