Next New Zealand general election

The next New Zealand general election to determine the composition of the 54th Parliament of New Zealand will be held no later than 13 January 2024, after the currently elected 53rd Parliament is dissolved or expires.

Next New Zealand general election
No later than 13 January 2024
All 120 seats in the House of Representatives
61 seats needed for a majority
Opinion polls
 
Leader Jacinda Ardern Christopher Luxon James Shaw
Marama Davidson
Party Labour National Green
Leader since 1 August 2017 30 November 2021 30 May 2015
8 April 2018
Leader's seat Mount Albert Botany List
Last election 65 seats, 50.01% 33 seats, 25.58% 10 seats, 7.86%
 
Leader David Seymour Debbie Ngarewa-Packer
Rawiri Waititi
Party ACT Māori Party
Leader since 4 October 2014 15 April 2020
28 October 2020
Leader's seat Epsom List
Waiariki
Last election 10 seats, 7.58% 2 seats, 1.17%
Incumbent Prime Minister

Jacinda Ardern
Labour


Voters will elect 120 members to the New Zealand House of Representatives under the mixed-member proportional (MMP) voting system, a proportional representation system in which 72 members will be elected from single-member electorates and 48 members from closed party lists.

At the 2020 election, the centre-left Labour Party, led by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, won an outright majority in the House, resulting in the first time under MMP that a party has been able to form a government without needing a coalition. Nonetheless, Labour formed a co-operation agreement with the Green Party. The main opponent to the Labour government is the centre-right National Party, led by Christopher Luxon, along with ACT New Zealand and the Māori Party.

Background
Further information: 2020 New Zealand general election and 53rd New Zealand Parliament
Parliamentary makeup prior to the next election.
  Labour (65—majority)
  National (33)
  Green (10)
  ACT (10)
  Māori (2)

The 2020 election resulted in a majority for the Labour Party, winning 65 seats, allowing them to continue the Sixth Labour Government unrestricted in the 53rd Parliament. Their coalition partner from the 52nd Parliament, New Zealand First, did not receive enough votes to pass the five percent threshold or win in an electorate, kicking them out of Parliament. Confidence and supply partner the Green Party received 10 seats, up two, becoming the first minor party ever to increase their share of the vote following a term in government. In the opposition, the National Party lost 23 seats, giving them a total of 33, and ACT New Zealand went from one seat to ten. The Māori Party won a Māori electorate and gained an additional list seat after losing representation in the 2017 general election.[1]

Electoral system
Main article: Electoral system of New Zealand

New Zealand uses a mixed-member proportional (MMP) voting system to elect the House of Representatives. Each voter gets two votes, one for a political party (the party vote) and one for a local candidate (the electorate vote). Political parties that meet the threshold (5% of the party vote or one electorate seat) receive seats in the House in proportion to the percentage of the party vote they receive. 72 of the 120 seats are filled by the MPs elected from the electorates, with the winner in each electorate determined by the first-past-the-post method (i.e. most votes wins). The remaining 48 seats are filled by candidates from each party's closed party list.[2] If a party wins more electorates than seats it is entitled to under the party vote, an overhang results; in this case, the House will add extra seats to cover the overhang.[3]

The political party or party bloc with the majority of the seats in the House forms the Government. Since the introduction of MMP in 1996, no party had won enough votes to win an outright majority of seats, until the landslide 2020 Labour victory, which gave them 65 seats. When no party has commanded a majority, parties have had to negotiate with other parties to form a coalition government or a minority government.[4]

Electorate boundaries for the election will be the same as at the 2020 election, with 65 general electorates (49 in the North Island and 16 in the South Island), and 7 Māori electorates. Boundaries are due to be redrawn in 2024, after the 2023 census.[5]

Election date

Unless an early election is called or the election date is set to circumvent holding a by-election, a general election is held every three years.[6] The previous election was held on 17 October 2020.

The governor-general must issue writs for an election within seven days of the expiration or dissolution of the current parliament. Under section 17 of the Constitution Act 1986, parliament expires three years "from the day fixed for the return of the writs issued for the last preceding general election of members of the House of Representatives, and no longer." The writs for the 2020 election were returned on 20 November 2020;[7] as a result, the 53rd Parliament must dissolve no later than 20 November 2023. Writs must be issued within seven days,[8] so the last day for issuance of the writs is 27 November 2023. Writs must be returned within 60 days of their issuance (save for any judicial recount, death of a candidate, or emergency adjournment),[9] which would be 26 January 2024. Because polling day must be on a Saturday,[9] and ten days is required for the counting of special votes,[10] the last possible date for the next election to be held is 13 January 2024.[11]

However, it is expected that the next election will be held in late 2023.[12][13] Since the 2014 election, the trend has been to hold the election on the second-last Saturday in September (the 2020 election was originally planned for this date but was delayed four weeks due a COVID-19 outbreak in Auckland). If this trend were to continue, the election will be held on Saturday 23 September 2023.

Parties and candidates

Political parties registered with the Electoral Commission can contest the general election as a party. To register, parties must have at least 500 financial members, an auditor, and an appropriate party name.[14] A registered party may submit a party list to contest the party vote, and can have a party campaign expenses limit in addition to limits on individual candidates' campaigns. Unregistered parties and independents can contest the electorate vote only.[15]

Since the 2020 election, three parties have been deregistered: Mana on 5 May 2021,[16] Advance New Zealand on 19 August 2021,[17] and Sustainable NZ on 15 December 2021.[18]

Party Leader(s) Founded Ideology 2020 result 2020 seats
Labour Jacinda Ardern1916Social democracy50.01%65
National Christopher Luxon1936Liberal conservatism25.58%33
Green Marama Davidson / James Shaw1990Green politics, social democracy7.86%10
ACT David Seymour1994Classical liberalism, conservatism7.58%10
Māori Party Debbie Ngarewa-Packer / Rawiri Waititi2004Māori rights1.17%2
NZ First Winston Peters1993Nationalism, populism2.60%0
Opportunities (TOP) Raf Manji2016Radical centrism, environmentalism1.51%0
New Conservative Helen Houghton / Ted Johnston2011Conservatism, right-wing populism1.48%0
Legalise Cannabis Maki Herbert / Michael Appleby1996Cannabis legalisation0.46%0
ONE Ian Johnson / Kariana Black / Allan Cawood2020Christian fundamentalism0.28%0
Vision NZ Hannah Tamaki2019Christian nationalism0.15%0
Outdoors Sue Grey / Alan Simmons2015Environmentalism, conspiracism0.11%0
TEA John Hong / Susanna Kruger2020Anti-racism, fiscal conservatism0.08%0
Social Credit Chris Leitch1953Social credit, economic democracy0.05%0
Heartland Mark Ball2020Agrarianism0.03%0


Opinion polls
Main article: Opinion polling for the next New Zealand general election
Graph of opinion polls conducted; smoothing is set to span = 0.65

Several polling firms have conducted opinion polls during the term of the 53rd New Zealand Parliament (2020–present) for the next general election. The regular polls are the quarterly polls produced by Television New Zealand (1 News) conducted by Kantar Public (formerly known as Colmar Brunton) and Discovery New Zealand (Newshub) conducted by Reid Research, along with monthly polls by Roy Morgan Research, and by Curia (Taxpayers' Union). The sample size, margin of error and confidence interval of each poll varies by organisation and date.

Seat projections

The use of mixed-member proportional representation allows ready conversion of a party's support into a party vote percentage and therefore a number of seats in Parliament. Projections generally assume no material change to the electorate seats held by each party (ACT retains Epsom, Greens retain Auckland Central, Māori retains Waiariki, etc.). Parties that do not hold an electorate seat and poll below 5% are assumed to win zero seats.

When determining the scenarios for the overall result, the minimum parties necessary to form majority governments are listed (provided parties have indicated openness to working together). Actual governments formed may include other parties beyond the minimum required for a majority; this happened after the 2014 election, when National only needed one seat from another party to reach a 61-seat majority, but instead chose to form a 64-seat government with Māori, ACT and United Future.[19]

Source Seats in Parliament[lower-roman 1] Likely
government
formation(s)
LAB NAT GRN ACT MRI Total
Newshub–Reid Research[20]
18–27 Apr 2022 poll		 48511083 120 Labour–Green–Māori (61)
National–ACT–Māori (62)
Taxpayers' Union–Curia[21]
7–13 Apr 2022 poll		 464712105 120 Labour–Green–Māori (63)
National–ACT–Māori (62)
Roy Morgan Research[22]
Apr 2022 poll		 434913132 120 National–ACT (62)
1 News–Kantar Public[23]
5–8 Mar 2022 poll		 474911103 120 Labour–Green–Māori (61)
National–ACT–Māori (62)
2020 result[24]
17 Oct 2020 election		 653310102 120 Labour (65)
  1. Forecasted seats are calculated using the Electoral Commission's MMP seat allocation calculator, based on polling results.

See also

References
  1. "New Zealand Election Results". ElectionResults.govt.nz/electionresults_2020/. Electoral Commission. Retrieved 27 November 2020.
  2. "What is the MMP voting system?". Parliament.nz. Electoral Commission. 27 May 2020. Archived from the original on 9 September 2020. Retrieved 9 September 2020.
  3. "Vote in elections". Parliament.nz. Electoral Commission. Archived from the original on 13 September 2020. Retrieved 9 September 2020.
  4. Hehir, Liam (11 August 2020). "Why an absolute majority is absolutely possible for Labour". Newsroom. Archived from the original on 13 September 2020. Retrieved 9 September 2020.
  5. "How are electoral boundaries decided?". Elections.nz. Electoral Commission. Retrieved 1 October 2021.
  6. "What happens in a general election?". Elections.nz. Electoral Commission. Archived from the original on 13 September 2020. Retrieved 9 September 2020.
  7. "2020 General Election writ returned | Elections". Elections.nz. 20 November 2020. Retrieved 18 May 2021.
  8. "Electoral Act 1993, Sec. 125". Legislation.govt.nz. Archived from the original on 28 September 2011. Retrieved 18 May 2021.
  9. "Electoral Act 1993, Sec. 139". Legislation.co.nz. 2 July 2020. Archived from the original on 13 September 2020. Retrieved 17 August 2020.
  10. "How are general election votes counted?". Elections.nz. Electoral Commission. Archived from the original on 13 September 2020. Retrieved 10 September 2020.
  11. Wilson, John (4 June 2021). "The 2020 General Election and referendums: results, analysis, and demographics of the 53rd Parliament" (PDF). New Zealand Parliament. Parliamentary Library. p. 26. Retrieved 3 October 2021.
  12. Braae, Alex (22 October 2020). "A tale of two minor parties: Lessons for 2023 for TOP and the New Conservatives". The Spinoff. Retrieved 8 December 2020.
  13. "Election 2020: Matthew Hooton: National set for third defeat in 2023". NZ Herald. Retrieved 8 December 2020.
  14. Electoral Act 1993, section 63.
  15. "Political parties in New Zealand". Elections.nz. Electoral Commission. Archived from the original on 24 August 2020. Retrieved 9 September 2020.
  16. "Amendment to the Register of Political Parties". Electoral Commission. 5 May 2021. Retrieved 6 May 2021.
  17. "Amendment to the Register of Political Parties". New Zealand Electoral Commission. 19 August 2021. Retrieved 1 September 2021.
  18. "Amendment to the Register of Political Parties". New Zealand Electoral Commission. 15 December 2021. Retrieved 23 December 2021.
  19. Schwartz, Dominique (20 September 2014). "John Key's National Party takes out New Zealand election". ABC News. Retrieved 10 September 2020.
  20. Lynch, Jenna (3 May 2022). "Newshub-Reid Research poll: Labour suffers dramatic fall as National cracks 40 pct". Newshub.
  21. Williams, Jordan (20 April 2022). "Taxpayers' Union Curia Poll: April 2022". Taxpayers' Union.
  22. "NZ Vote: Potential National/Act NZ (47.5%) coalition retains a clear lead over Labour/Greens (44%) in April". Roy Morgan Research. 3 May 2022.
  23. "National overtakes Labour in latest 1News Kantar Public Poll". 1 News. TVNZ. 10 March 2022.
  24. "2020 GENERAL ELECTION – OFFICIAL RESULTS AND STATISTICS". ElectionResults.govt.nz. Electoral Commission. Retrieved 28 February 2021.
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