20 Aug 2018

Opportunities Party revived with Geoff Simmons as leader

From Morning Report, 7:47 am on 20 August 2018

The Opportunities Party has a new leader. The former deputy leader Geoff Simmons has taken up the reins to lead the party to the 2020 election. TOP was founded in 2016 by Gareth Morgan, but as leader he became embroiled in a series of public relations disasters. The party received 2.4 percent of the party vote in the 2017 election but last month decided to deregister - although these plans have now been scrapped. Geoff Simmons tells Guyon Espiner he's still waiting for the promised MMP review to see if the threshold could be lowered to four percent. But in the meantime he's asking party members to offer their skills and money to keep the party going.