Everything you need to vote informed
One stop for the facts, the parties, and the policies. Pick where you want to start.
Key dates
Parliament dissolves: 1 October 2026
Election day: 7 November 2026
Enrolling, advance voting, and special votes: exact dates and locations are set by the Electoral Commission — check and update your enrolment anytime at vote.nz.
The current Parliament
Objective facts about the 54th New Zealand Parliament, elected 14 October 2023. Source: parliament.nz and Electoral Commission NZ.
The current government — National, ACT and NZ First
New Zealand is governed by a three-party coalition elected in October 2023. National leads the coalition with Christopher Luxon as Prime Minister. ACT's David Seymour is Deputy Prime Minister. NZ First's Winston Peters holds several senior portfolios. Together the three parties hold 68 of 123 seats — a working majority of 6 seats.
The opposition
Labour is the main opposition party, led by Chris Hipkins. The Green Party (co-led by Chlöe Swarbrick and Marama Davidson) and Te Pāti Māori (co-led by Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer) also sit in opposition. Together they hold 55 of 123 seats. The Opportunity Party (TOP) is not currently in Parliament but is polling around 6%.
| Party | Role | Seats | Party vote % |
|---|
You get two votes on election day
Every voter gets two votes: an electorate vote for their local MP candidate, and a party vote for the party they want in Parliament. The party vote is more important for the overall result — it determines what share of seats each party receives nationally, regardless of who wins individual electorates.
What does your party vote actually do?
Your party vote determines the percentage of Parliament each party receives. If a party wins 30% of party votes, they get roughly 30% of the 120 seats (about 36 seats). Even if your local electorate candidate loses, your party vote still counts toward that party's national total.
The 5% threshold
A party must win either 5% of the party vote, or at least one electorate seat, to enter Parliament. Parties that don't clear this threshold receive no seats, even if they received hundreds of thousands of votes. This is why smaller parties often campaign hard in specific electorates — ACT in Epsom is a well-known example.
What is an overhang seat?
If a party wins more electorate seats than their party vote entitles them to, Parliament temporarily expands to accommodate them. In 2023, Te Pāti Māori won 6 electorate seats but only 3.1% of the party vote (which would entitle them to ~4 seats). This created a 2-seat overhang, giving Parliament 122 seats instead of 120. A further seat was added in December 2023 when National won the Port Waikato by-election, bringing the total to 123.
Why do parties need to form coalitions?
Because MMP produces proportional results, no single party usually wins a majority on its own. Parties must negotiate coalition agreements after the election, combining their seats to reach a majority. The current government (National 49 + ACT 11 + NZ First 8 = 68 seats) is a typical example of how this works in practice.
The seven parties
Every party with a realistic chance of entering Parliament at the 7 November 2026 election. Click any party's website link to read their policies directly from the source.
Compare by issue
Pick a topic to see every party's announced policy on it, side by side — sourced from each party's own website.
Unless flagged otherwise, these are campaign promises, not law.
How coalitions work
Under MMP, no single party usually wins enough seats to govern alone. Parties must combine their seats to reach a majority. Here's the last confirmed election result and how coalition-building actually works — not opinion polling, which this site doesn't use to project outcomes.
Why does this matter to you? Your party vote doesn't just elect your preferred party — it also affects which combinations of parties can form a government. A party you vote for might win seats but end up in a government you didn't anticipate. Understanding how coalition-building works helps you vote with the full picture.
Full coalition vs. confidence and supply
Parties that agree to govern together typically choose one of two arrangements. A full coalition gives the smaller party seats in Cabinet and binds it to collective responsibility for government decisions generally. Confidence and supply is looser: the smaller party agrees to support the government on confidence votes and budget bills, but can vote independently on everything else. The exact mix used by any government is set out in its coalition agreement, published after negotiations conclude.
Seat and vote-share figures are the official 2023 general election result (parliament.nz, Electoral Commission NZ) — the composition of the sitting 54th Parliament, not a projection of the 7 November 2026 result. This page deliberately doesn't publish or model opinion polling: polls carry real margins of error, can shift quickly, and the actual coalition arithmetic after the election depends on the real result.
From your vote to the law
Every policy on this site is a campaign promise, not law. Here's the process one actually has to survive to become a real, working piece of legislation.
Step 1 — Your vote decides who's in Parliament
Your party vote determines how many seats each party wins, and under MMP a single party almost never wins a majority outright. See for exactly how that works.
Step 2 — Coalition talks decide what actually gets pursued
When no party has a majority, the parties that can combine to reach 62+ seats negotiate a coalition or confidence-and-supply agreement. Individual policies get traded in that process — kept, watered down, or dropped entirely — and the resulting coalition agreement, not any single party's manifesto, becomes the government's actual work programme. See for what the current numbers suggest is possible.
Step 3 — It still has to pass through Parliament as a bill
A policy that survives coalition talks still has to be introduced as a bill, go through a select committee where the public can make submissions, be debated, and be voted on. It can be amended significantly, or fail to pass, even with government backing — particularly where a support party has agreed only to "confidence and supply" rather than a full coalition.
What's more likely to actually happen?
Not all commitments carry equal weight. Some parties label a specific policy a coalition "bottom line" — something they say they won't govern without — and this site flags those with a badge wherever they appear. A policy a government has already implemented is different again, flagged "Already delivered" rather than treated as a promise.
All policies
Sourced directly from official party websites and official press releases, 2025–2026 only. Click "Plain English" on any policy for a plain-language explanation of what it means in practice.
Unless flagged otherwise, these are campaign promises, not law.