ACT party member John Banks had a cup of tea with Prime Minister John Key this morning in a café in the Epsom electorate in Auckland. Although John Key cannot say, “Vote for John Banks,” he said that if Banks wins, the National Party will be happy to have ACT as a coalition partner. It is interesting that the National candidate in Epsom, Paul Goldsmith is trying to win support for his party not for himself. He wants people to give the party vote to National. If ACT wins in Epsom, they could get 2 or 3 MPs in Parliament to support a National government. This depends on the percentage of votes for the ACT party. However, if Paul Goldsmith wins, that is only one MP.
After the 2008 election, ACT, the Maori Party and United Future were coalition partners who supported National. This gave National enough MPs to form a coalition government.
John Banks is a well-known politician. He was elected as a National MP in 1981. In 1990, he became the Minister of Police, the Minister of Tourism and the Minister of Sport. After he left Parliament, he was Mayor of Auckland from 2001 to 2004 and again from 2007 to 2010. However, he was defeated in 2010 when Len Brown became the new mayor.
Vocabulary
Coalition – a government made up of two or more political parties; the party which has the most votes forms the government but a coalition party supports that government on most issues
Defeated – beaten, did not win
Questions
Many people are unhappy about the National Party using the MMP voting system to gain more MPs to support them. Other people think it is good to have a coalition government because the minor parties have some control over the National government. What do you think?