New Zealand Royal Commission on the Electoral System
1985-86 New Zealand inquiry that recommended mixed-member proportional representation.
Andy Burnham's 29 September 2026 launch of a National Commission on Electoral Reform made New Zealand's royal Commission the model to beat: its 1986 report led, through two referendums, to mixed-member proportional voting, where Britain's 1998 Jenkins report was shelved.
Last refreshed: 7 October 2026
Timeline for New Zealand Royal Commission on the Electoral System
Recommended MMP, adopted by referendum
UK Local Elections 2026: Mentioned in: Burnham pledges to change voting systemBackground
New Zealand's Royal Commission on the Electoral System was appointed in 1985 by the Fourth Labour Government, after Labour had won more votes but fewer seats than National at the 1978 and 1981 elections.
Chaired by Justice John Wallace, it published Towards a Better Democracy in 1986 and unanimously recommended mixed-member proportional representation with a 4% threshold. Referendums in 1992 and 1993 adopted MMP, first used at the 1996 election. Parliament set the threshold at 5% rather than 4%, kept the Māori electorates and enlarged The House to 120 members.
It is the standard case of a Commission that changed a country's voting system, set against the UK's shelved Jenkins report.
A 1986 report becomes the benchmark
Labour's new Commission, announced at the party's Liverpool conference on 29 September 2026, had neither a chair nor published terms, and Burnham named no preferred system. Of the two precedents for a Reform Commission, New Zealand's is the one that changed a voting system.
The royal Commission reported in 1986 and unanimously backed mixed-member proportional representation. Voters endorsed the change in referendums in 1992 and 1993, and the country first elected a Parliament under MMP in 1996. Britain's Jenkins report, by contrast, never reached a ballot, so the New Zealand body is the case reformers point to when arguing that a Commission can deliver a new system.