Tuesday, May 07, 2019



No MMP referendum

Last year, Justice Minister Andrew Little teased us with the prospect of a referendum at the next election on the unfair MMP threshold. But buried in the announcement on their (not) "binding" cannabis legalisation referendum is some bad news: that won't be happening either:

The Justice Minister also confirmed there will be no other government initiated referendums at the next election.
So, I guess we're not going to see MMP made more democratic then. Not that Labour ever really cared about that - they're happy with a high threshold, because it limits political competition. But its another example of how they're wasting the opportunity of government, even when change would be pushing on an open door.

(I'm not sure if this means Little is also ruling out the proposed referendum on the End of Life Choices Bill happening at the next election, or whether that's not a "government-initiated" referendum).