Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: No-one was asking for an MMP referendum

Yeah, well, if Chris Luxon's week wasn't already bad, it's not much better.

Not after he apparently announced off the cuff on ZB Mornings with Kerre that he's going to hold an MMP referendum if he wins the election.

Now, where do I start with the problems with him doing this?

The first is that it looks incredibly desperate. No one was asking for a referendum. It's not a topic of discussion.

I mean, sure, we can all see that MMP is giving Chris Luxon heaps of trouble because he can't fire his Foreign Minister for being racist without ending the coalition and forcing a snap election.

But that has not led to a clamour for a return to FPP. In that context, him suddenly announcing that he wants to get rid of MMP, which is basically what he said by calling for a referendum on the thing, looks like he just wants to get rid of the system that's to blame for his party polling around 30 percent and sometimes below 30 percent.

That just looks incredibly desperate.

Now, I'm not saying that he is desperate because I actually think what happened here is that Chris Luxon fell into the trap of doing what Chris Luxon often does: agreeing with the person he's talking to. And because Kerre really liked the idea, all of a sudden he liked the idea and off he went on a tangent.

But for people who didn't hear the whole exchange and just see the headlines, this looks desperate.

The second problem is that this is now dominating what should really be a very good news day for the National Party.

Their star minister, Erica Stanford, has just released the new subjects for students in Years 12 and 13. Chris Bishop has finally revealed the date for Auckland's new train system.

We should be talking about that but instead we're talking about the Prime Minister saying the second weird thing in a week.

For the record, if there were a referendum, and there will not be a referendum, which is why this idea is cooked, it would fail.

Look at how many people vote for parties that are only there because of MMP: the Greens, ACT, New Zealand First and The Opportunity Party, if you believe the polls.

Meanwhile, the two old FPP parties, National and Labour, can't get themselves out of the low 30s.

So it's going to fail and that is the third problem.

A Prime Minister should never, if they can avoid it, back an idea that is destined to fail.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Heather due for Cela. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Well, if Chris Luckson's week wasn't already bad yesterday, it's
not much better today, not after he announced, apparently off
the cuff on z B this morning with Kerry, that
he's going to be holding an MMP referendum again if
he wins the election.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Now where do I start with the problems with him
doing this? The first problem is that this looks incredibly desperate.
No one was asking for a referendum. It's not a
topic of discussion. I'm sure we can all see that
MMP is given Chris lux and heaps of trouble because
he can't fire as Foreign Minister for being racist without
ending the coalition and forcing a snap election. But that
had not led to a clamor for a return of FPP,

(00:37):
in which case him suddenly announcing that he wants to
get rid of MMP, which is basically what he said
by calling for a referendum on the thing, looks like
he just wants to get rid of the system that's
to blame for his party currently polling around thirty percent,
sometimes below thirty thirty percent. That just looks incredibly desperate.
Now I'm not saying that he is desperate, because I
actually think what happened here is that Chris Luxin fell

(00:59):
in to the trap of doing what Chris Luxonoten does,
which is agreeing with the person that he's talking to him,
because Kerry really liked the idea. All of a sudden
he liked the idea, and off he went on a tangent.
But for people who didn't hear the whole exchange and
just see the headlines, this looks desperate. The second problem
is that this is now dominating what should really be

(01:19):
a very good news day for the National Party. Their
star minister, Erica Stanford, has just released the new subjects
for students who are doing Year twelve and thirteen. Chris
Bishop has finally revealed the date for the new train
system in Auckland. We should be talking about that, but
instead we're talking about the Prime Minister saying the second
weird thing in a week. For the record, if there
was a referendum, and there will not be a referendum,

(01:41):
which is why this idea is cocked. If there was
a referendum, it would fail because look at how many
people currently vote for parties only there because of MMP,
the Greens, the Act Party, New Zealand First, top the
Opportunity Party. If you believe the current polls, the two
FPP parties, the two old parties National and Labor, we
don't get themselves out of the low thirties. So it's

(02:03):
gonna fail. And that is the third problem. A prime
minister should never, if they can avoid it, back an
idea that is destined to fail. For more from Heather
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