John MacDonald: MMP is best, even with the yahoos and numpties

Author: John MacDonald,
Publish Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2026, 1:08pm

Follow the podcast on

Politically-speaking, the current MMP coalition government is the most successful one we’ve ever had.

Because, unlike coalitions of the past, the minor parties - ACT and NZ First - have managed to maintain their presence and identity.

In the past, the minor parties have been swallowed up by the bigger parties and, generally, disappeared from view.

This time around it’s a completely different story. With ACT and NZ First making their presence well and truly felt.

Not just recently. But for the whole term.

Some might put that down to Christopher Luxon’s failure to keep David Seymour and Winston Peters under control.

But no one can say that ACT and NZ First have disappeared off the radar the way the Maori Party did after being in cahoots with National.

Even the Greens found the confidence and supply arrangement they had with Labour between 2017 and 2020 took the spotlight off them.

This time, though, we’ve had a coalition government like never before. In that none of the parties have become bit players.

So, from a purely political perspective, it’s been a raging success.

But Christopher Luxon wants a referendum on our voting system to find out if people are still happy with MMP. He’s obviously not a fan, because he says he doesn’t want to work with “yahoos and numpties” in a coalition cabinet.

His ham-fisted announcement on Newstalk ZB yesterday was news to his caucus colleagues. It was news to his coalition partners too. With Winston Peters describing it as an “inexplicable power grab”.
But I reckon that if we didn’t have MMP, there’d be a truckload of people unable to bring themselves to vote in this year’s election.

That might be an easy thing to say, given we’ve had MMP for the past 30 years and because MMP has given us more voting options.

But the idea, after all this time, of going back to the days where it was pretty much Labour or National doesn’t sound great, does it?

And, whatever your politics, you’vec got to say that the choice and the variety MMP gives us is brilliant. There’s certainly no way I would want to see it go.

LISTEN ABOVE