I& #39;m continually saddened by some of the divisive nature of the referendum debates. It brings me back to my strongly held view that Parliament should make these decisions and own the consequences, and that in not doing so, they vacated their responsibility. 1/4

We elect and pay MPs for this. We have processes for Parliament to hear from the public in select committees. By subjecting these big issues to referendums, they& #39;re putting them in the hands of lobby groups who will often misrepresent and divide. 2/4

In the current world of social media and increased & #39;tribalism& #39; referendums pit people against each other. When a political party does something we disagree with, we can vote for another, whereas when it& #39;s those around us, we then add another job of maintaining community. 3/4

For this reason I am against party policies to introduce binding referendums, I was extremely disappointed with @nzfirst on the euthanasia debate, and believe @nzlabour and @NZGreens should have just moved ahead with cannabis reform if that& #39;s what they wanted. 4/4