If public sentiment doesn’t change – and we still seem to have many marooned and undecided voters this close to the election – what happens if there’s no clear cut winners or parties have ruled out certain coalitions?
We could have a minority government:
But as [former UnitedFuture leader and government minister Peter Dunne] also notes, there are downsides in the form of greater instability, particularly when it comes to passing the budgets necessary to fund the government’s work.
While Wellington lawyer and electoral law expert Graeme Edgeler says, “Do they get to govern in the way that they want to? Or just fundamentally, nothing happens for years because … it was a vote-by-vote basis, but they could never get agreement to do anything and so nothing much changed.”
Or, we could have a hung parliament, with no feasible kingmaker.
Labour and National have been tied in two of the 20 public polls since Hipkins succeeded Ardern, and last month the NZ Herald’s poll of polls estimated a 12 per cent chance of a hung Parliament on October 14.
Though the country was in a similar position after the 2017 election, as Labour and National waited for Winston Peters to decide where New Zealand First would throw its support, the absence of a similar ‘kingmaker’ this time around – and Luxon’s decision to rule out working with Te Paati Maori – could throw a wrench into the works.
If the National-ACT and Labour-Green-Maori groupings secured 60 seats each, and neither bloc could peel MPs away from the other, the result could be a fresh election, Edgeler says.
Read more here. Discuss it on The BFD.