After seeing our Prime Minister caught on camera gleefully promising to "kill" and "spike" the Treaty Principles Bill before a single submission has been read, the Hobson's Pledge team put our thinking caps back on.
Clearly, Christopher Luxon has no respect for his voters. He must have seen the polling on the Bill. Polling that shows 64% of decided National Party voters support passing the Bill.
With such a mammoth response to the public consultation and support from all decided coalition party voters (53% NZ First and 95% ACT), the Government should pass this Bill and send it to a referendum.
That is an important thing to remember. The Bill will not become law simply by the Government passing it. First, it will go to a binding referendum at the next election and will only be enacted if that referendum passes.
So what can National voters do? Hobson's Pledge has written letters, sent emails, and made it pretty clear that Christopher Luxon is upsetting a large portion of his own supporters. But he has dug in.
It's time to step things up and we have an idea, but we wanted to put it to you first and see what you think.
What if National Party members cancel or don't renew their membership unless Christopher Luxon and the Government make the Treaty Principles Bill a conscience vote?
A conscience vote means that instead of each party voting in a bloc, every individual MP casts a vote. Generally, conscience votes are used for Bills regarding controversial or 'moral' issues e.g. alcohol laws and Easter trading.
What do you think? Are you a National Party member? Would you be willing to cancel your membership in order to remind National who their voters are?
If we get enough support for this idea, we will launch a Boycott for the Bill campaign.
Click the button if you back our idea and want to chip in to fund spreading the word*.