By the way, an interesting feature of the agreement is clause 17, "Beyond these stated areas of cooperation, it is also the Government’s intention to work with political parties from across Parliament (including the opposition) on issues that affect our democracy, including the Electoral Commission’s 2012 recommended changes to MMP, electoral finance law, and the length of the Parliamentary term" Hopefully this means that the party vote threshold is lowered to 4% and parliamentary terms are extended to 4 years (though because the latter was twice rejected in referendums decades ago, it would probably need to go to a referendum and be rejected again).
I sure hope it's rejected. Having 3-year terms is one of the best features of NZ (and Australian) politics, and more countries need to follow that model. I already hate that Sweden switched to 4 years in the 90s (and unsurprisingly its politics have become markedly worse since).
Every Australian state bar Queensland has had four-year terms for the last three decades. And Queensland voted four-year ago to finally move to four-year terms to bring them in line with every other state.
At least in Australia we've found four-year terms have worked better. Three year terms give you two, two and a half years sitting of parliament which isn't really enough for a government to enact their agenda, and instead leaves them in election mode for nearly half of the sitting term.
