‘Fighting hardcore for you’: Politicians make their 11th-hour plea to young voters

The latest voter enrolment figures show a lot of young people are simply opting out of this election. With that in mind – and with the deadline to enrol imminent – The Spinoff asked political parties to make a 60-second pitch on what they can offer.

It’s no secret that young people are the least engaged in this election. With just hours to go till the enrolment deadline on Sunday night, 18-to-24-year-olds are lagging well behind the rest.

As of Thursday, 68.6% of that cohort were enrolled, according to the Electoral Commission, some distance from the 77.2% figure reached at the 2023 election. There’s still time for the number to increase, but in 2023, 33% of enrolled 18- and 19-year-olds signed up during the voting period – something that isn’t allowed this time around.

And despite all the work being done, youth enrolment has been sub-par for a while – it consistently sits below 80% while every other age bracket tends to top 90%, and enrolment for those 60 and older almost reaches the 100% mark.

With that in mind, The Spinoff series Now You Know with Robbie Nicol wanted to give political parties one last chance to talk to young voters before enrolments close at midnight on Sunday, October 25.

Politicians and young people agree on one thing – life is tough right now​

“OK, let's be real. It's very hard out here,” says NZ First's Māngere candidate, Vicky Hau, opening her video.

“You've been told that if you study hard, work hard, do all the right things, you will get ahead. But hey, let's be real, are you?”

Calling out the dire state of the world and how young people seem to be copping the brunt of it was a common theme across all six of the videos The Spinoff received.

While politicians who made their 60-second plea ranged in age and experience, the cost of living was the most consistently talked about issue.

While some promised the answer was investing in skilled jobs and specialised industries here in New Zealand, others, like Labour's Arena Williams, said they were focused on lowering everyday costs like GP visits, food, power and transport bills.​

National’s Bay of Plenty MP Tom Rutherford and Act's Auckland Central candidate Antonia Modkova were aligned on the need to change KiwiSaver criteria to guarantee a less grim future for young New Zealanders.

Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson, or Aunty Marama, as she calls herself in the video, meanwhile, told young people there was enough wealth in New Zealand to go around, but unlocking it would involve taxing the “super rich” who have not been “paying their fair share”.

Despite climate change being a key issue for young people, only two parties, the Greens and Opportunity, mentioned the environment, and only Opportunity’s leader Qiulae Wong specifically mentioned environmental policies such as “banning bottom trawling, making sure that we incentivise good use of land, restoring wetlands and native forests”.

Overall, it was clear politicians knew they not only needed to make a case for their party, but for New Zealand as a whole, with five of the six videos trying their best to convince young people there was a life here for them in New Zealand, and they didn’t need to leave the country to find success (or simply to afford to live).

Disclaimer: The Spinoff reached out to all the parties currently in parliament, or which have hit 5% in polling in 2026. The videos are shown in the order they were received by The Spinoff. Te Pāti Māori was unable to provide a video for this series.

When The Spinoff asked to clarify National MP Tom Rutherford’s claim that $2,263 in extra tax per household would be required to fund Labour’s “unfunded spending plans”, a National Party spokesperson told The Spinoff, “To be clear, this figure only costs Labour’s promises and is not dependent on coalition negotiations. Labour’s fiscal plan promises to get net debt down to 20% of GDP. This means they cannot fund the bill with more debt (without breaking that promise) – it must be from new taxes.”

The Labour Party’s finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds has previously rejected this claim of an $18.2bn shortfall in Labour’s funding, telling RNZ: “[National Party finance spokesperson] Nicola Willis needs to put the calculator down. The bill doesn’t exist and plucking numbers out of thin air won’t fix the economy.”