Written especially for Political Junkie (because I seem to be so useless at answering questions lol) and anyone else who is interested in politics and political change.

In 1993 we New Zealanders voted in a referendum to change our voting system from the traditional first past the post (FPTP) method to mixed member proportional representation (MMP).

The origins of this electoral reform lay in the gradual breakdown of public trust and confidence in politicians, Parliament and the simple certainties of the old two-party dominated system. This process of distrust had begun in a more gradual way in the 1950s and 1960s but gathered much more momentum in the 1970s and 1980s, decades which were marked by economic uncertainty and the emergence of new social and political movements in New Zealand.

A big problem was that the FPTP system tended to create Parliaments that were quite different in composition to those that the voters appeared to want or be actually voting for. People argued that what was really needed was a system of proportional representation in which each party's share of the seats in Parliament would be close to its share of the overall vote.

(Almost all New Zealand elections between 1853 and 1996 were held under the first past the post (FPTP) system. Under the FPTP system, each voter has one vote and the candidate who receives the most votes in each electorate is the winner. Successful candidates do not need to win an absolute majority (that is, more than 50%) of the votes cast, they just need to win the most electorates.)

FPTP is the voting system that most western democratic governments including the UK and USA have now, by the way.

By the 1970s many of us New Zealanders were completely disillusioned with both the National and Labour political parties. We felt we were being lied to and treated with disdain by our politicians who were pressing on with their own agendas and not ours So more voters began to look towards alternative parties, but the FPTP system did those voters no favours. Social Credit, the leading third party since 1954, won 16% of the overall national vote in 1978 but managed to get only one seat out of the 92 seats possible in Parliament. Then three years later nearly 21% of electors voted for Social Credit, but the party gained just two seats. In the 1984 election the New Zealand Party won 12% but no seats.

Criticism of the unfairness of the FPTP voting system intensified after the 1978 and 1981 general elections. On each occasion the Labour Opposition actually secured more votes overall than National, but National won more seats in Parliament and remained in government .

During the 1981 and 1984 campaigns, Labour promised to set up a Royal Commission to look into a wide range of issues relating to the electoral system. Following Labour's victory in 1984, a Royal Commission on the Electoral System was established in early 1985.

The report of the Royal Comission which was completed in December 1986, was surprisingly radical. It recommended that New Zealand adopt the German-style mixed member proportional representation (MMP) system, in which each voter would get two votes: one for an electorate Member of Parliament (MP) and one for a party. The size of Parliament would increase to 120 MPs: half would be elected in single-member constituencies/electorates (as before); the other half would be selected from party lists so that, in general, each party's share of all 120 seats would correspond to its share of the overall vote.

Few of Labour's leaders liked the commission's recommendations, however, and so they tried to sideline the issue. Although National's leadership also disliked the idea of MMP they did, of course, see an opportunity to embarrass that current government over their failure to respond to the commission's proposals. As each party tried to outmanoeuvre the other, both entered the 1990 election campaign promising to hold referendums on these electoral reforms that they didn't really want .

The Labour government was heavily defeated in the 1990 election, but its National successor was soon under fire for breaking election promises. Confidence and trust in politicians and Parliament plunged to new and even lower depths. Polls showed that politicians ranked alongside used-car salespeople as the least-respected occupational group in the country.

Public support for electoral reform continued to grow (rapidly even).

Under pressure to respond to public demands for change, the National government agreed to hold an indicative referendum (that is, one that was not binding on the government) on the 19th September 1992.

That date, incidentally, was the 99th anniversary of the signing into law of New Zealand's last great electoral reform – the women's suffrage legislation of 1893 .

In a complicated two-part poll, voters were asked; 1) whether they wanted to change the existing voting system; 2) and then to indicate support for one of four reform options: mixed member proportional representation (MMP), the single transferable vote (STV), supplementary member (SM) or preferential vote (PV). If there was majority support for change, the government promised to hold a binding referendum (with a choice between the first past the post (FPTP) system and the most popular reform option) the following year.

There was an education campaign that took place prior to the poll about how the various systems worked.

An overwhelming 85% of New Zealand voters voted to change their electoral system. In the second part of the poll, 70% of them favoured the MMP option. Labour leader Mike Moore said, "The people didn't speak on Saturday. They screamed".

The second, binding referendum - a straight choice now between FPTP and MMP – was held at the same time as the 1993 general election. By now there were well-organised lobby groups on both sides of the debate, and the campaign was fiercely contested. A barrage of television and newspaper advertisements sought to sway undecided voters. As the poll was held alongside a general election, the voter turnout – 85% of all eligible voters – was naturally much higher than in 1992. MMP was backed by a comfortable margin, 54% to 46%.

There were, of course, teething issues in the first few years and some surprises at the way some things worked out. All elections since have resulted in coalition governments, (the party with the largest number of votes making coalitions and operating agreements with one or more smaller parties), however this has the effect in the main of keeping the parties accountable to each other and to us, the voters.

As the Royal Commission and pro-MMP campaigners predicted, our Parliament has become much more diverse and representative of our modern New Zealand society rather than the historical problem of only having a "white men in suits" representation. Following the 2005 election there were 39 women MP's, 21 Maori MP's, 4 Pacific MP'sand 2 Asian MP's among Parliament's 121 members. We are now also quite used to having Gay and Transexual Mp's and even a Rastafarian. All people in a society are entitled to be, and to have their views represented in the society's governing body.

This link shows how people now vote their 2 votes in New Zealand elections and how these votes work to form our government. MMP - How it Works