By The Straits Times | Created at 2026-08-06 01:34:57 | Updated at 2026-08-06 13:20:49
12 hours ago
WELLINGTON - New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon supports a referendum on the nation’s mixed member proportional voting system if he is re-elected at the end of 2026.
“That’s something we should consider,” Luxon told NewstalkZB on Aug 6.
Asked if he would do so if he was prime minister in 2027, Luxon replied: “Yeah, I think I would.”
The voting system, introduced for the 1996 election, has resulted in coalitions or governments supported by confidence-and-supply agreements.
In recent times, smaller parties holding the balance of power have entered into negotiations to form a government, which have taken weeks to conclude, resulting in policy compromises and creating uncertainty in the economy.
Luxon said a referendum on whether to continue MMP was held in 2011 and “it is quite right to check in constitutionally and say, is this the system, New Zealand, you still want? Is it still where you want to be?”
In 2011, 58 per cent of voters in a referendum chose to retain MMP.
A review was carried out the following year that recommended changes to how MMP works, but they weren’t implemented by the government at that time.
Luxon’s National Party has around 30 per cent support in latest popularity polls ahead of the Nov 7 election, indicating it will again need to be in talks again with its current partners New Zealand First and ACT to form a new coalition.
In 2023 that coalition took almost seven weeks to be confirmed. BLOOMBERG
