- Country quota
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The country quota was a part of the New Zealand electoral system from 1881 until 1945. Its effect was to make urban constituencies more populous than those in rural areas, thus making rural votes worth more in general elections.[1]
The quota was established to prevent or at least slow the marginalisation of rural interests as the New Zealand population became increasingly urbanised. It was also a way to counteract the influence of recently enfranchised working men; until 1879 only (male) property owners could vote, which meant that a disproportionate number of electors lived in the countryside. The quota was originally 33%, meaning that urban electorates were 33% larger than rural electorates and, essentially, rural votes were worth 33% more. In 1887 the quota was reduced to 18%, but then increased two years later to 28%.
The country quota was always unpopular with the Labour Party, which took most of its support from the cities, and generally felt the system to be an undemocratic violation of the 'one man one vote' principle. Its policy of abolishing the quota was abandoned in the 1930s in order to win rural support, and the extra seats remained for the first three terms of the first Labour government. By the 1940s Labour had lost most of its rural support and felt that the quota could cost it the 1946 election. Consequently, the quota was abolished in 1945 and Labour won the election by four seats.
R. M. Chapman (1969) studied the effect of the Country Quota in the five elections 1919 to 1931, when there were 8 extra seats (76 not 68 European seats) because of the quota. He found the quota had only a small effect on Labour, which was down 2 seats in 1931 and 1 seat in 1919, 1922, 1925 & 1928. Only in 1922 could this have affected the results of the election, as Massey would have had to find three not two allies from the Liberals. But Massey easily found two Liberals (who were afterwards nominated to the Legislative Council), and with the disarray in the Liberals could have found one more.
This surprising result had three reasons:
- Reform & Liberal had urban support, and would have got some of the extra urban seats.
- Labour had three Country-Mining seats, and may have lost one or more of these
- The fictitious 8 country seats would have been redistributed, and as the countryside was still half of all New Zealand it would have received 4 back again.
Footnotes
- ^ Urban electorate were those that contained cities or boroughs of over 2000 people or were within five miles of the chief post offices in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, or Dunedin.
Further reading
- Atkinson, Neill (2003), Adventures in Democracy: A History of the Vote in New Zealand, University of Otago Press.
- Chapman R. M. (1969)The Political Scene 1919-1931 (New Zealand History Topic Book by Heinemann) Appendix: The effect of the Country Quota (pages 66-68).
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