September 4, 2026 7:00am by David Farrar

A stupid plan, not a cunning plan

I have blogged previously on how the Te Pati Maori plan to deliberately engineer an overhang for the left is a very bad idea. It is basically trying to engineer a scenario where you can form a government despite winning fewer votes than the opposing parties.

Some people, such as Nick Mowbray, have said one should try and do the same on the right.

This is a very very very bad idea, for numerous reasons. Let me go through them.

  1. This would mean National has no List MPs at all. That means you would replace Nicola Willis, Paul Goldsmith, possibly Chris Bishop with whoever is ranked No 17 or 15 on the NZ First or ACT party list. If you think that will make for a stronger centre right Government, you’re out of your mind.
  2. It would also be profoundly undemocratic. The public will have a revulsion to any government that gets formed despite winning fewer votes than the opposition.
  3. It creates an arms race, where all parties will then try to manipulate the system – Labour could try the same with Greens and TOP. You’ll end up with absolute chaos.
  4. It permanently weakens National. If National is reduced to an electorate only party, with no List MPs, then its ability to bring talented people such as Tim Groser, Steven Joyce etc in is gone.
  5. It treats National, NZ First and ACT as interchangeable parties. The fewer seats National has, and the more NZ First has, then the fewer policies National will get to implement – so expect lots more money for horse racing and MFAT, and no chance of plugging the deficit to get out of debt

The way you get a centre-right government is to have more people give their party vote to either National, ACT or NZ First, than to Labour, Greens, Te Pati Maori or TOP. It’s that simple.

If you want more National Party policies and Ministers, then choose National. If you want more ACT Party policies and Ministers, choose ACT. If you want more NZ First Party policies and Ministers, choose NZ First. But do not vote for ACT and NZ First if you actually want National Party policies and Ministers, on the basis of a cunning overhang plan. It won’t work, and will only damage National.