Mike Hosking: Time to ditch MMP after this shambles

Opinion

I don't think I am alone in thinking Winston Peters looks a mess.

As he stood there yesterday afternoon he looked tired, worn down, flat, he looked ill or depressed or both.

Peter Dunne, who is clearly revelling in his decision to get the hell out of the business, made yet another salient point - that all this is leading to an inevitable end... and it's not a good one.

He spoke (I think for most of us now) when he said the cart was before the horse.

Bill English and Jacinda Ardern have come out of this abysmally - and we don't even know what they've agreed to yet. Their reputations could be further discredited when the details finally get released.

They have been dictated to, they have had the power whipped out from under them, and they are virtually invisible. They say nothing.

They look scared to say anything.

They look like scolded school kids fearful to utter a word in case he who must be obeyed gives them detention.

The concept that they are major players representing many times more New Zealanders than Peters does has clearly escaped them.

You will know I have been fearful of this all along. This is exactly what happened 20 years ago.

My hopes were raised when the October 12 deadline was offered - that indicated that perhaps lessons had been learned. No such luck.

The Peters-New Zealand First experience of 1996 is no different to the 2017 version - nothing has changed.

Two decades of MMP and we have got exactly nowhere. The question is: do we do anything about it?

Is this enough of a lesson to realise that MMP in its worst form doesn't work?

Or when a deal is finally struck we all move on as though nothing happened, and most of the current disgruntlement is born of boredom.

In a modern, highly connected world we expect stuff to happen fast.

In my experience, a deal feels right or it doesn't - and the longer it takes the less likely it is to hold.

This reeks of a mix of too much minutiae - and too much Peters vanity - too much of a power play.

It feels like a shambles waiting to be explained, and then it either unravels or implodes.