New Zealand politics in 2025 was essentially a live-action stress test for MMP, public patience, and the integrity of Parliamentary norms and traditions. The Government started the year promising “growth” but quickly realised that promising things that are in no small part out of your control is a bad idea. The Coalition also discovered that nothing angers New Zealanders more than change, except not changing anything. The tri-party arrangement has stood the test of time though. Ministers might have to carefully explain that they are all on the same page, just reading different paragraphs, in different languages, from entirely different books, at times, but their core shared purposes have been sufficient glue.
