News & Events

Election 2017: Government formation in New Zealand

BY The Policy Observatory

What are the rules around forming governments under MMP and why doesn’t New Zealand have coalition arrangements across the political divide?

These questions and more are considered in the latest Briefing Papers: How MMP Works, on the lack of rules around government formation in New Zealand, and Grand Coalitions, an explanation of coalition deal-making in Finland, where ideologically opposed parties frequently form governments together. A number of claims have been made about whether the largest party has a moral mandate in government creation, or whether the Greens could do a deal with National. Our Briefing Papers provide background information that cuts through the claims, hyperbole and partisan positioning.

The Briefing Papers website http://briefingpapers.co.nz/ was started in 2014 and sits under The Policy Observatory umbrella. Papers are published most weeks on various social, economic and environmental policy issues. You can subscribe to the Briefing Papers using an RSS feed. Updates on Briefing Papers are also included in the monthly Policy Observatory newsletter; a sign-up form for the newsletter is on our homepage: https://thepolicyobservatory.aut.ac.nz/