Back then, the Independent Electoral Review had just handed down interim recommendations: a lower threshold, a look at four-year terms, tidier electoral finance rules, and a stronger nod to Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Rather than picking up the 2023 review’s sensible, incremental suggestions, he has floated something far bigger: a referendum on the future of MMP itself. Why we have MMP in the first placeNew Zealand did not stumble into MMP by accident. The 1986 Royal Commission on the Electoral System looked hard at the problem and recommended proportional representation. New Zealanders voted for change in a 1992 indicative referendum and confirmed it in 1993, with MMP first used in 1996.