If the public votes in favour of legalising cannabis in a referendum, a National-led government would change the law accordingly, National Party leader Simon Bridges says.
[...]
Mr Bridges said National would enact a law change if that was what New Zealanders wanted.
"Oh I think we've got to, I mean we've got to go with what the people want and what a referendum tells us.
"We've got a bit of water to go under the bridge, we've got to see the question, we're going to have an informed debate I hope on the issues, but absolutely on principle we support referendums and their outcomes."
Compare this to the government's bad-faith approach, where they have explicitly refused to be bound by the results of the vote they themselves have demanded. At the same time we should also remember that National doesn't actually give a shit about democracy and is happy to ignore referenda when they go against the interests of their rich donors and cronies. On this issue, they're simply motivated by a desire to embarrass the government. But the support of useful idiots is still useful, and hopefully it will force the government to do the same thing (or see the election turn into a vote on implementing their referendum).