Formula For Seats

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30768, 4 June 1965, Page 7

Formula For Seats

(N.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON, June 3. An increase in the size of the House of Representatives is authorised under an Electoral Amendment Bill introduced in Parliament. The bill fixes the number of European seats in the South Island at 25—one more than at present. European representation in the North Island will be increased accordingly. The four present Maori seats will remain, unaffected by the bill. There will be no change in

the number of constituencies at the General Election next year. The proposed changes will take effect when boundaries are redrawn after the 1966 census, a task which takes many months. After the 1966 and each succeeding five-yearly census, the Representation Commission will divide the certified population of the South Island into 25, producing a “quota” for each South Island I seat which will also become the “quota” for each North i Island seat. The number of North Island constituencies will then be fixed by dividing its certified European population by the “quota” already determined. 1 The number of North

Island seats will therefore vary and, as long as the northward population drift continues, must tend to increase. Because it cannot form constituencies with each containing the exact arithmetical quota, the commission retains its present power to vary the European population of individual seats by 5 per cent, up or down. Had the new formula'been applied by the Representation Commission when it determined present seats in 1962, the House would now have 82 members —25 South Island European, 53 North Island European, and four Maori. For both the South Island and the North Island, this would have meant an extra European member.