Still a month to go until the New Zealand elections, but Labour’s odds continue to shorten. Centrebet now has them hot favourites at 2-1 on, with the Nationals 7-5 against. Last weekend it was reported that “an experienced Australian punter” had put $50,000 on Labour.

I’ve pointed out before that New Zealand has a much more democratic
electoral system than Australia (it was adopted in a referendum against
the wishes of the political leaders), but it’s not without its
anomalies. An editorial earlier this week in theNew Zealand Herald explains how it’s sometimes in the interests of a major party to let a
minor party win one of their seats, if they would be a possible
coalition partner.

This is because if a party wins an electorate, it
automatically gets members of its party list into parliament without
having to reach the five per cent threshold. If two minor parties each
have four per cent of the vote, but one of them wins an electorate and
the other doesn’t, the first will get five seats (4% of 120) and the
other none. So if ACT, the radical free-market party, were able to get
across the line in a National Party seat, it would improve the overall
chances of a National/ACT coalition.

In Germany, which otherwise has much the same
system, it doesn’t work that way; there you have to reach the threshold
in order to get any list seats. So at the last election, for example,
when the Party of Democratic Socialism (the former East German
communists) won two electorates but only 4% of the nationwide vote, it
finished with just the two seats, rather than the 12 or 13 that would
correspond to its share of the vote.

Oddly enough, Centrebet isn’t offering odds on
Germany, but it is taking bets on the Norwegian elections, to be held
on 12 September. I’m told that Scandinavians represent a large share of
Centrebet’s customers. In case you’re interested, Labour leader Jens
Stoltenberg is favoured to be the next prime minister, at odds of about
11-4 on.