Between them, National and Labour accounted for just 62.06% of the popular vote. Pundits opined that this historically low two-party share reflected in more-or-less equal measure the novelty of the new electoral system and a substantial minority of the electorate’s emphatic rejection of politics as usual.
Even so, National and Labour retained their primacy. Though other, smaller parties – NZ First and the Alliance – had performed well, the formation of a government was impossible without the imprimatur of either National or Labour.
That much, at least, of the two-party system which had reigned supreme in New Zealand since 1938 remained intact. At roughly three times the size of their nearest ideological rivals, Labour and National continued to call the shots.
That may no longer be the case.
According to The New Zealand Herald’s Poll of Polls published on Thursday 17th September 2026, the combined support for the two largest parties had fallen below 60%. Between them, National and Labour accounted for just 57.5% of the popular vote.
The latest 1News-Verian poll, released on Monday night (28/9/26) bore even more bracing tidings. National and Labour were tied at 28% of the party vote apiece. The combined vote of the two major parties had fallen from 67% in April to 56% in September.
Historians and political scientists will scratch their heads and furrow their brows at this news. It is almost a century since New Zealand was last in the grip of anything other than the two largest political parties. Between 1919 and 1931, New Zealand see-sawed and whip-lashed between uneasy combinations of the Reform, United and Labour parties.
But if Labour and National continue their synchronised decline, and if their combined share of the party vote approaches 50%, then New Zealand will enter new and potentially dangerous political territory.
Receding tide
Let us then assume that the next few polls confirm Labour’s and National’s slide in public support, with the Poll of Polls eventually showing the two majors each struggling to retain 25% of the party vote.
That’s not such an outrageous suggestion as you might think. On the basis of the 1News-Verian poll, Labour’s and National’s combined support has only to decline by a further six percentage points for the warning klaxons to start blaring.
And remembering that between April and September 2026, Labour-plus-National shed 11 percentage points.
Both parties know what it is like to fall so far and land so hard. In 2002, National’s party vote plummeted to a teeth-grinding 20.93% – the most meagre share of the popular vote that the party has ever received.
Twelve years later, in 2014, it was Labour’s turn. At just 25.13%, Labour’s share of the popular vote had fallen to its lowest point since 1922. Chris Hipkins himself fared little better than the hapless David Cunliffe, attracting just 26.91% of the party vote to Labour in 2023.
When the tide of public affection recedes from a political party, it can go out a long way. And when both major parties are left high and dry by dissatisfied voters, all manner of strange things can happen.
Profound shift
As with most things associated with democratic politics, it all comes down to simple arithmetic.
In a bitterly polarised country, with all the opinion polls showing substantial public support migrating to those minor parties embedded in the two big ideological blocs – and with the outcome of the election balanced on a knife edge – something unprecedented in the MMP era may begin to unfold.
The combined voter support for the smaller parties within the Left and Right blocs may begin to approach the vote-share of their formerly dominant coalition partner.
If Labour is stuck on 25%, then it stands to reason that the Greens, Te Pāti Māori and Opportunity will, together, enjoy a roughly similar level of popular support.
The same likely applies on the right-hand side of the aisle. Should National fall to 25%, then Winston Peters and David Seymour will presumably command at least as much electoral support between them as Christopher Luxon.
When that happens, the power relationships between National, ACT and NZ First will undergo a profound shift, as will the relationship between Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori.
Saying “no” to David Seymour and Winston Peters proved hard enough for Christopher Luxon when their combined 2023 party vote amounted to just 14.72 % – less than half National’s 38.06%. Should the combined 2026 vote of Luxon’s coalition partners rise to equal or even surpass National’s own, “no” will cease to be a realistic option.
Not that Luxon shows the slightest sign of grasping the extremity of his party’s predicament. A party leader with just 28% of the party vote cannot expect the same degree of deference from his putative coalition partners as a party leader with 38%.
The Prime Minister has yet to read that memo, or the polls. On the same day as the 1News-Verian results landed, Luxon told journalists: “I want every single one of those 20 seats around that Cabinet table filled with National ministers.”
Not that the situation in the Left bloc is much better. Learning of her party’s record level of voter support, which the 1News-Verian poll put at 16%, Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick gleefully ticked-off for journalists the portfolios she would be demanding from Hipkins. Climate change seemed a reasonable bid, but Finance Minister?
The business community will now be anticipating the next round of polling with considerable trepidation. A Green Party with 20% of the party vote could well end up being given the keys to the Treasury. If that happens, then the big end of town will be hoping that Jordan Williams and his Taxpayers Union are every bit as good as Nicky Hager says they are.
Bottom lines
With Opportunity’s parliamentary contingent in tow, the Greens would be well positioned to secure major changes in the ways New Zealanders are taxed.
“Chippy” can issue all the captain’s calls he likes against upsetting the fiscal apple-cart, but will he be in any position to enforce them when Swarbrick, Qiulae Wong and Debbie Ngarewa-Paker challenge him with the oldest question in politics – “Or you’ll what?”
Ditto, when Luxon attempts to rule out ACT’s and NZ First’s treaty policies. New Zealanders may soon discover whether or not Luxon is prepared to die in a ditch for the Waitangi Tribunal. The smart money says “not.”
National’s awkward position in relation to the MMP barrel might be altered, however, if Luxon relents in his flat-out rejection of Opportunity as a potential coalition partner. With Opportunity’s “bottom lines” making no mention of land taxes, citizen incomes or the treaty, some sort of support arrangement involving Luxon and Wong cannot be dismissed as wholly fanciful.
Certainly, there is nothing in Opportunity’s five non-tradeable policies that the National Party could not (after several stiff drinks) endorse. Some of them Luxon and his team have already embraced, like disciplining the supermarket duopoly and recommitting to the long-term climate change objectives National signed-up to in Paris.
Certainly, Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori would wave Opportunity’s bottom lines through their respective policy checkpoints with an indulgent nod.
Screwing the scrum
But the wider electorate might not be so easy-going, especially if a “win” for either the Left or the Right is secured by exploiting the weaknesses of New Zealand’s MMP electoral law.
With Te Pāti Māori openly urging its supporters to give it an “overhang” large enough to carry the Left bloc over the line, and an informal coterie of right-wing influencers counselling fearful National supporters to boost the Right bloc’s numbers by adopting the same tactics, the potential for widespread constitutional acrimony is huge.
By advising its supporters to give the party only its electorate vote and freeing them to support ACT and NZ First with their party vote, National could secure for itself the benefit of a decisive overhang of parliamentary seats. Even though it ended up with the most party votes, the Left bloc might still find itself excluded from power.
Would the Left’s exclusion be legal? Yes, perfectly. Except, in a deeply polarised New Zealand, no one would care. The Left would denounce the result as a “rort”. Labour, the Greens, Te Pāti Māori and Opportunity would declare the election “stolen” by the underhand tactics of right-wing manipulators.
Exactly the same accusations would spew forth from the Right if Te Pāti Māori’s cunning plan ended up seating the Left on the Treasury benches – even though, collectively, the left-wing parties had secured a smaller share of the popular vote than the parties of the Right.
It is also possible that such manipulation might end up strengthening the position of what by now are Labour’s and National’s not-so-little helpers.
A decisive overhang does not necessarily rescue the two major parties from the prospect of being over-ruled by their smaller coalition partners. Indeed, the minor party “tail”, augmented by the overhang strategy, may have grown large enough to wag the entire ideological dog.
It is tempting to think the whole destabilising shemozzle might be avoided if only National and Labour could find the courage to join hands in defence of “sweet moderation” by announcing the formation of a “grand coalition”.
Tempting, but illusory. If history offers any guide, by robbing the champions of change of their democratic mandate, grand coalitions end up only making things worse.
As the influential American philosopher John Dewey observed nearly a century ago: “The cure for the ailments of democracy is more democracy.”
Apparently, we can never have enough of a bad thing.
Chris Trotter is a well known political commentator. This article was sourced HERE
That much, at least, of the two-party system which had reigned supreme in New Zealand since 1938 remained intact. At roughly three times the size of their nearest ideological rivals, Labour and National continued to call the shots.
That may no longer be the case.
According to The New Zealand Herald’s Poll of Polls published on Thursday 17th September 2026, the combined support for the two largest parties had fallen below 60%. Between them, National and Labour accounted for just 57.5% of the popular vote.
The latest 1News-Verian poll, released on Monday night (28/9/26) bore even more bracing tidings. National and Labour were tied at 28% of the party vote apiece. The combined vote of the two major parties had fallen from 67% in April to 56% in September.
Historians and political scientists will scratch their heads and furrow their brows at this news. It is almost a century since New Zealand was last in the grip of anything other than the two largest political parties. Between 1919 and 1931, New Zealand see-sawed and whip-lashed between uneasy combinations of the Reform, United and Labour parties.
But if Labour and National continue their synchronised decline, and if their combined share of the party vote approaches 50%, then New Zealand will enter new and potentially dangerous political territory.
Receding tide
Let us then assume that the next few polls confirm Labour’s and National’s slide in public support, with the Poll of Polls eventually showing the two majors each struggling to retain 25% of the party vote.
That’s not such an outrageous suggestion as you might think. On the basis of the 1News-Verian poll, Labour’s and National’s combined support has only to decline by a further six percentage points for the warning klaxons to start blaring.
And remembering that between April and September 2026, Labour-plus-National shed 11 percentage points.
Both parties know what it is like to fall so far and land so hard. In 2002, National’s party vote plummeted to a teeth-grinding 20.93% – the most meagre share of the popular vote that the party has ever received.
Twelve years later, in 2014, it was Labour’s turn. At just 25.13%, Labour’s share of the popular vote had fallen to its lowest point since 1922. Chris Hipkins himself fared little better than the hapless David Cunliffe, attracting just 26.91% of the party vote to Labour in 2023.
When the tide of public affection recedes from a political party, it can go out a long way. And when both major parties are left high and dry by dissatisfied voters, all manner of strange things can happen.
Profound shift
As with most things associated with democratic politics, it all comes down to simple arithmetic.
In a bitterly polarised country, with all the opinion polls showing substantial public support migrating to those minor parties embedded in the two big ideological blocs – and with the outcome of the election balanced on a knife edge – something unprecedented in the MMP era may begin to unfold.
The combined voter support for the smaller parties within the Left and Right blocs may begin to approach the vote-share of their formerly dominant coalition partner.
If Labour is stuck on 25%, then it stands to reason that the Greens, Te Pāti Māori and Opportunity will, together, enjoy a roughly similar level of popular support.
The same likely applies on the right-hand side of the aisle. Should National fall to 25%, then Winston Peters and David Seymour will presumably command at least as much electoral support between them as Christopher Luxon.
When that happens, the power relationships between National, ACT and NZ First will undergo a profound shift, as will the relationship between Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori.
Saying “no” to David Seymour and Winston Peters proved hard enough for Christopher Luxon when their combined 2023 party vote amounted to just 14.72 % – less than half National’s 38.06%. Should the combined 2026 vote of Luxon’s coalition partners rise to equal or even surpass National’s own, “no” will cease to be a realistic option.
Not that Luxon shows the slightest sign of grasping the extremity of his party’s predicament. A party leader with just 28% of the party vote cannot expect the same degree of deference from his putative coalition partners as a party leader with 38%.
The Prime Minister has yet to read that memo, or the polls. On the same day as the 1News-Verian results landed, Luxon told journalists: “I want every single one of those 20 seats around that Cabinet table filled with National ministers.”
Not that the situation in the Left bloc is much better. Learning of her party’s record level of voter support, which the 1News-Verian poll put at 16%, Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick gleefully ticked-off for journalists the portfolios she would be demanding from Hipkins. Climate change seemed a reasonable bid, but Finance Minister?
The business community will now be anticipating the next round of polling with considerable trepidation. A Green Party with 20% of the party vote could well end up being given the keys to the Treasury. If that happens, then the big end of town will be hoping that Jordan Williams and his Taxpayers Union are every bit as good as Nicky Hager says they are.
Bottom lines
With Opportunity’s parliamentary contingent in tow, the Greens would be well positioned to secure major changes in the ways New Zealanders are taxed.
“Chippy” can issue all the captain’s calls he likes against upsetting the fiscal apple-cart, but will he be in any position to enforce them when Swarbrick, Qiulae Wong and Debbie Ngarewa-Paker challenge him with the oldest question in politics – “Or you’ll what?”
Ditto, when Luxon attempts to rule out ACT’s and NZ First’s treaty policies. New Zealanders may soon discover whether or not Luxon is prepared to die in a ditch for the Waitangi Tribunal. The smart money says “not.”
National’s awkward position in relation to the MMP barrel might be altered, however, if Luxon relents in his flat-out rejection of Opportunity as a potential coalition partner. With Opportunity’s “bottom lines” making no mention of land taxes, citizen incomes or the treaty, some sort of support arrangement involving Luxon and Wong cannot be dismissed as wholly fanciful.
Certainly, there is nothing in Opportunity’s five non-tradeable policies that the National Party could not (after several stiff drinks) endorse. Some of them Luxon and his team have already embraced, like disciplining the supermarket duopoly and recommitting to the long-term climate change objectives National signed-up to in Paris.
Certainly, Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori would wave Opportunity’s bottom lines through their respective policy checkpoints with an indulgent nod.
Screwing the scrum
But the wider electorate might not be so easy-going, especially if a “win” for either the Left or the Right is secured by exploiting the weaknesses of New Zealand’s MMP electoral law.
With Te Pāti Māori openly urging its supporters to give it an “overhang” large enough to carry the Left bloc over the line, and an informal coterie of right-wing influencers counselling fearful National supporters to boost the Right bloc’s numbers by adopting the same tactics, the potential for widespread constitutional acrimony is huge.
By advising its supporters to give the party only its electorate vote and freeing them to support ACT and NZ First with their party vote, National could secure for itself the benefit of a decisive overhang of parliamentary seats. Even though it ended up with the most party votes, the Left bloc might still find itself excluded from power.
Would the Left’s exclusion be legal? Yes, perfectly. Except, in a deeply polarised New Zealand, no one would care. The Left would denounce the result as a “rort”. Labour, the Greens, Te Pāti Māori and Opportunity would declare the election “stolen” by the underhand tactics of right-wing manipulators.
Exactly the same accusations would spew forth from the Right if Te Pāti Māori’s cunning plan ended up seating the Left on the Treasury benches – even though, collectively, the left-wing parties had secured a smaller share of the popular vote than the parties of the Right.
It is also possible that such manipulation might end up strengthening the position of what by now are Labour’s and National’s not-so-little helpers.
A decisive overhang does not necessarily rescue the two major parties from the prospect of being over-ruled by their smaller coalition partners. Indeed, the minor party “tail”, augmented by the overhang strategy, may have grown large enough to wag the entire ideological dog.
It is tempting to think the whole destabilising shemozzle might be avoided if only National and Labour could find the courage to join hands in defence of “sweet moderation” by announcing the formation of a “grand coalition”.
Tempting, but illusory. If history offers any guide, by robbing the champions of change of their democratic mandate, grand coalitions end up only making things worse.
As the influential American philosopher John Dewey observed nearly a century ago: “The cure for the ailments of democracy is more democracy.”
Apparently, we can never have enough of a bad thing.
Chris Trotter is a well known political commentator. This article was sourced HERE
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