New Zealand
In the New Zealand House of Representatives, division of the assembly occurs when the result of a voice vote on a motion is split, and a member disagrees with the Speaker's call. There are two methods for handling a division: a party vote and a personal vote.
A party vote is the most common method, and occurs for non-conscience issues and some consience issues. In this method, the Clerk of the House reads out each party's name in order of the number of seats each party has, starting with the largest party, followed by any independent members and any members wishing to cross the floor. A member of the party (usually a whip) will respond to their party's name by stating how many members of the party are in favour or opposed. The Clerk tallies up the votes and gives the results to the Speaker, who declares the result. A split party vote is a variation of the party vote, used for some conscience issues. The main difference is voting members state how many members of their party are in favour and how many members are opposed, and once the voting is completed, must table a list of the members of the party and how they voted.
A personal vote is used mainly for conscience issues, and follows similar procedures to other Westminster systems. In the event of a personal vote, the division bells are rung for seven minutes, and after the bells stops, members are instructed to move to one of two lobbies, "Ayes" or "Noes", to have their vote recorded as such. Once all the votes are tallied, the results are handed to the speaker who declares the result.
An unusual division occurred on 30 August 2012, with a three-way conscience vote on New Zealand's legal drinking age. All members were directed to the Noes lobby, where the Clerk of the House recorded each member's vote (either for keeping the age at 18, raising the age to 20, or raising the off-licence age to 20 while keeping the on-licence age at 18) as they passed back into the main debating chamber. The votes were tallied and handed back to the Speaker, who declared the results as 50 votes for 18 years, 38 votes for 20 years, and 33 votes for a 18/20 split. As no option acquired the 61-vote majority needed, the option with the lowest number of votes (18/20 split) was dropped, and the members voted again as per a normal personal vote, using the Ayes lobby for 18 years and Noes lobby for 20 years.
Read more about this topic: Division Of The Assembly
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