Christopher Luxon says he supports having another referendum on the MMP voting system if he’s re-elected as he encourages greater support for National so the party can avoid working with “some yahoo and numpty” in Cabinet.
Act leader David Seymour says he’s not opposed to another referendum but suggests Luxon “may not have thought through what he’s saying” regarding ministers from other parties, noting the number of National ministers who had been dismissed this term.
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters says the referendum proposal is “inexplicable” and a “power grab” as he claims Labour and National are “losing their grip on power”.
The Herald understands Luxon’s announcement came as a surprise to National MPs. The Herald has approached the National Party for comment.
It is unclear if this is merely a desire by the Prime Minister, or official National Party policy. Either way, I think it is premature.
We voted in 1993 to adopt MMP by 54% to 46%. In 2011, 18 years later, there was another referendum where NZers voted 58% to 42% to keep MMP. It was right to have a second referendum to confirm if NZers were happy with how MMP had worked out.
We should not however be voting every 15 years on what electoral system, we have. There is no hard and fast rule, but I would suggest you would only have such a referendum every 30 years or so. This is why I also oppose a second Scottish independence 12 years after the last one.
David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders
3 comments:
It is the same old if you don't like the answer keep reframing the question until you do game. The desperate need to focus on this could have easily been avoided if the PM had dealt with co-governance and maorification plus dealt with the wastage of our tax monies on grift.
Showing hints of the National party "born to rule" mindset of old.
It's so funny that country Jim was responsible for MMP being voted in. Remember the mother of all budgets, the Employment Relations Act 1991, the refusal to get rid of the Super surcharge after promising it prior to the 1993 election. Funny isn't?
I have no interest whatsoever in another referendum on MMP, but if Luxon was to express interest in referenda on the abolition of the Maori seats, the dissolution of the Waitangi Tribunal and the chance to vote in support of Act’s Treaty Principle’s Bill, he’d really gain my attention - and perhaps even support if he was sufficiently believable. Chance would be a fine thing, huh.
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