Christopher Luxon has promised a referendum on the MMP voting system if National is returned to power on 7 November, a commitment that appears to have caught his coalition partners and much of his own caucus by surprise.
The Prime Minister made the remarks on Newstalk ZB on Thursday morning, saying a referendum on MMP was “something we should consider” and that he wanted to see it happen next year.
“I actually think it’s quite right to check-in constitutionally and say, is this the system New Zealanders still want … is it still where you want to be?” he said.
He paired the idea with a commitment to hold a referendum on extending the parliamentary term from three years to four, an idea his own Government abandoned earlier this year.
Within hours the response from his coalition partners had turned sour. New Zealand First leader Winston Peters posted to Facebook praising the move away from First Past the Post in the 1990s for having broken the “stranglehold of two parties running roughshod over our economy without social licence”.
“Now that the two old parties are losing their grip on power, they want to change the electoral system to favour their falling fortunes,” Peters said, according to RNZ.
“Shutting down and taking away true democratic representation from the people of New Zealand should be seen for what it is – a power grab and an ignorance for what it means to be a democracy.”
Peters also said nobody had raised the issue with him during his travels around the country, and he described the previous referendums on MMP as decisive. Asked about it at Parliament, he reached for a phrase that has been following the Prime Minister around all week. “This is time for a parent-child conversation here. We’re going to sort this out, all right?” Peters said, echoing the language Luxon apologised for using about New Zealand businesses on Monday.
ACT leader David Seymour was more measured but no more supportive. He called it an “interesting idea” while pointing out that voters were “pretty strongly” against changing MMP at the last referendum in 2011, and that the timetable involved would stretch well into the 2030s.
“We can have another one, but if we had the referendum at the 2029 election, then we probably have to have another one about what we change in 2032, and then we’d have to have the new system in 2035. In the nine years between now and 2035, I just think New Zealand probably has some more urgent things to get onto,” Seymour said. He confirmed Luxon had not consulted him.
The other half of the interview caused as much trouble as the referendum promise. Making the case for as many National ministers as possible around the Cabinet table, Luxon said he did not need “some yahoo or numpty from some other party” there. He later denied he was talking about his coalition partners.
Seymour, who is Deputy Prime Minister, said that sort of commentary did not help New Zealand, then added a jab of his own about Luxon having moved on at least five of his own ministers. “It’s the old thing, once you start throwing stones, sometimes you end up finding the glass houses a bit shaky,” he said. ACT minister Nicole McKee said the comment was not offensive to her and reflected more on Luxon than on those doing the work. New Zealand First minister Casey Costello said she was surprised and hoped he was not referring to her party.
More awkwardly for the Prime Minister, National MPs walking into the House on Thursday afternoon would not say whether they had known the policy was coming, RNZ reported. Louise Upston said the Prime Minister was “reflecting a conversation” many people were having. Tama Potaka said what the Prime Minister said was up to the Prime Minister. Mark Mitchell said it was not relevant to this election, then acknowledged he had not seen the comments.
National campaign chair Simeon Brown said it was not a formal announcement at all. “He was on radio giving a view, and that’s great,” Brown said, and would not say whether a referendum on MMP was party policy. Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith, who would have to write any referendum legislation, said he was not sure it was an announcement and that Luxon was simply answering a question.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins said a referendum was unnecessary and that frustration with MMP was really frustration with Luxon’s leadership. “He has let the small parties ride roughshod over him and the National Party, in a way that’s undermined confidence in him and our entire democratic system,” Hipkins said.
Former United Future leader Peter Dunne, who spent 33 years in Parliament and served as a minister under both Labour and National, told RNZ’s Checkpoint he did not think the appetite was there. Dunne said Luxon had not made clear whether he wanted to scrap MMP or replace it with something specific, and put the promise down to the Prime Minister’s own experience in government.
“I don’t think he imagined three years ago that he would be run rings around by his two coalition partners the way he has been so often,” Dunne said. He also noted that recommendations from the Electoral Commission’s review after the 2011 vote have still not been implemented, which in his view makes another referendum premature.
At that 2011 referendum, held alongside the general election, 57.8 percent of voters chose to keep MMP.
The four-year term half of Luxon’s promise has a shorter and more recent history. Legislation enabling a four-year term subject to a referendum passed its first reading in March 2025 by 117 votes to six, and $25 million was set aside in last year’s Budget to run the vote. The justice select committee was critical of the proposal, warning a variable term would create uncertainty for the public, councils and business. In February this year the Government dropped the referendum for this election, with Goldsmith saying it was “not a priority for us in the justice area at the moment” while leaving the door open for a future government.
The practical position, then, is that nothing changes before 7 November. Any referendum on either question would need a bill passed in the next term, and on Thursday nobody in the coalition other than Luxon was willing to say it was policy. Voters who want to work out where the parties actually stand before election day can compare their own views against the party positions with our voting tool.
What do you make of it? Is a referendum on MMP something you want, or is this a Prime Minister taking his coalition frustrations to the airwaves? Leave a comment below and tell us how you see it.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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