More than half of Kiwis want to keep MMP, according to a new 1News Verian poll, after the Prime Minister signalled it may be time to put the voting system back to voters.
The poll asked whether New Zealand should keep MMP or change to a different voting system. Some 53% said the country should keep it, while 29% wanted to change to a different system. The remaining 18% did not know or preferred not to say.
The question follows Christopher Luxon's move earlier this month to open the door to a referendum on MMP if National was re-elected.
It was a move that commentators believed helped lead to last week's failed National Party leadership coup after the captain's call caught his own MPs by surprise.
Committing to a referendum on talkback radio, Luxon argued it was "quite right to check in constitutionally" on whether MMP was still the system New Zealanders wanted.
Electoral law expert Graeme Edgeler told 1News it appeared that support for change had dropped compared with previous votes.
"Maybe even a little surprised that support for change is as low as it is."
He said the country had effectively voted on MMP twice, with support sitting in the "low to mid 50s" both times and about 45% favouring the first past the post system.
"It's probably just a decision a lot of people thought — that's a decision we've made, that's the system we've got," he said.
Edgeler questioned how often the country should revisit the issue.
National Party leader adamant a proposed four-year parliamentary should include a review of our electoral system. (Source: 1News)
"New Zealand, having voted twice in approximately just over 20 years, that is a very frequent amount of time to ask this sort of question," he said.
"Lots of countries might never ask this in someone's adult life, and if they do, it is very much only going to be the one big time and you either make the change or you don't."
New Zealand first chose MMP in a 1993 referendum, and backed it again in 2011.
Edgeler cautioned against reading too much into the poll, saying it was unclear what any alternative would even be.
"We don't even know what the alternative is. Would we be debating first past the post, or would we be debating one of the other systems?" he said.
University of Otago law professor Andrew Geddis said the more useful question was not whether voters wanted change, but whether they would ever be asked. (Source: Breakfast)
"You might get a very different result from a discussion about MMP or one of the other proportional systems, for example, single transferable vote."
1News put the poll numbers to the Prime Minister's Office, but it said it had no comment to add to his previous statements.
When he announced the policy, Luxon tied the idea to his frustration with managing a coalition, saying he people didn't "need some yahoo or numpty from some other party" around the Cabinet table. He clarified that he was not referring to his own partners.
Prime Minister says, if re-elected, he’d have a referendum to test support for continuing the electoral system. (Source: 1News)
Labour leader Chris Hipkins said today he had no intention of changing the system.
"If you're an incompetent prime minister, no electoral system is going to help you do a better job of running the country. Christopher Luxon has made an absolute hash of running his coalition. That's not MMP's fault," he said.
Jack Tame clears up the confusion around the country's 30 year old MMP voting system. (Source: 1News)
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