National (still) hates democracy

The National party in Aotearoa has always hated democracy. In the late 70's and early 80's they retained power in the face of majority opposition only by virtue of an unfair electoral system. When popular discontent at that led to a push for MMP, they opposed it. When the people won and imposed it on the traitorous political class who had given us Rogernomics and Ruthanasia, they tried to overturn it. And now, not content with using voter suppression in an effort to rig the next election, they're trying to rig all future ones by going back to the old, unfair system, which reliably delivered absolute power on minority support:

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says he would hold an MMP referendum if re-elected - but his coalition partner Winston Peters has ruled such a referendum out.

Luxon made the comments on Newstalk ZB.

He had been discussing a long-mooted referendum on whether to bring in a four-year parliamentary term and then started to discuss whether it was appropriate to see if the public was “still supportive of MMP.”

Asked if he would undertake such a referendum if re-elected, Luxon said “Yeah, I think I would.”

Fuck that. We are currently at a historic weak-point for the legacy parties - the latest Roy Morgan poll showed their collective support at less than 60% - and I'd suggest that that alone makes this idea an absolute non-starter. Any regime "elected" under such a system would lack any legitimacy and simply have no mandate to govern.

The good news is that its a non-starter, because Winston says "no". And as any future National government is absolutely reliant on that racist zombie for a majority, that means there's simply no parliamentary majority to pass the legislation required for a referendum, let alone a change. It simply won't happen (and no, Labour isn't going to agree to it either).

Which also makes it a perfect example of how National's "promises" are irrelevant. They can huff, and they can puff, but ultimately they need a majority to act, which means the agreement of multiple coalition partners. And for a lot of what they "promise" that agreement will not for forthcoming. They're simply a party of hot air.