CENTRIST UPSTART
This week’s knife-edge poll drew intense attention to the country’s minor parties, in particular the upstart centrist Opportunity Party.
Under the country’s mixed-member proportional representation (MMP) system, voters must tick two options – a general party list as well as an individual member to represent their electorate.
Results put Opportunity winning over five per cent – the threshold needed to gain seats in parliament without an electorate candidate win, which could give the party a kingmaker role in the next government.
Leader Qiulae Wong has vowed a kinder, gentler politics and said she could work with whichever party wins the most seats.
“You guys have voted for unity over division,” she said as votes rolled in.
“You have voted to change New Zealand politics for good.”
She told state broadcaster 1News that she had both Luxon’s and Hipkins’ phone numbers ready.
COST OF LIVING
Kiwis are struggling to make ends meet – the price of basic goods remains stubbornly elevated, and unemployment at its highest in more than a decade.
The war in the Middle East and the subsequent global fuel shock have been widely blamed for the hit to New Zealand’s economy.
Luxon had hoped his right-wing coalition could cling to power with promises of “no new taxes”, after three fractious years in office, two failed bids by his own party to oust him as leader and an economy in the doldrums.
And while National have a path to power, they would do so without several of their most senior and highest-performing members.
Deputy leader and Finance Minister Nicola Willis will not return to parliament due to her party’s poor performance in the party vote.
And Chris Bishop, the minister for housing, infrastructure and transport, looks set to lose his Hutt South seat.
