The party is consistently polling near the 5% threshold and the major parties are starting to have to take a stance on it as a potential coalition partner. But where is that support coming from, and what would it mean for the election, asks Henry Oliver in today’s excerpt from The Bulletin.
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Every so often, an election throws up a new party – or one that’s never made it into parliament – that threatens to upset New Zealand’s recent five-to-six party system. Often, it’s the possibility of winning an electorate seat and maybe dragging one other MP along for the ride. But occasionally a party will start polling over, say, 3% and people start thinking, hang on, could this really happen?
This election, the Opportunity Party is taking on that role like it never has before. In the nearly ten years since it was founded, the party has won between 1.4-2.5% of the vote in each general election. But something has changed. On The Spinoff today, Toby Manhire reports that in the last five published polls, the party has received between 3.3% (TPU/Curia) and 6.5% (Roy Morgan).
National rules out a coalition
Last month, when the party first polled over 4%, National leader Christopher Luxon said he hadn’t “given them any thought”. But yesterday, after another month of solid results, Luxon used yesterday’s post-cabinet press conference to rule out any post-election arrangement with the Opportunity Party, as reported by the Herald’s Jamie Ensor.
Luxon said he wasn’t interested in doing business with parties wanting to raise taxes, pointing to Opportunity’s universal income and land tax as reasons a vote for the party effectively supported Labour and the Greens. Pushed on whether this meant a firm rule-out, he confirmed the statement, and his office later verified this to the Herald, adding Luxon had briefed National’s board on the decision.
Still, Opportunity knocks
In response, RNZ’s Lauren Crimp reported this morning that Wong’s position hadn’t shifted, with the Opportunity leader repeating that her party remained ready to have that conversation whenever Luxon was. Wong suggested National’s tone might soften if the numbers after the election left the party needing Opportunity’s support to govern, repeating her broader argument that major parties should move past “tribal politics,” arguing that boxing voters into left-versus-right categories makes it harder to cooperate on major challenges like climate change and AI.
Labour’s campaign chair, Kieran McAnulty, said his party would clarify its own position on potential partners shortly, while ACT leader David Seymour said he was surprised Luxon’s rule-out hadn’t already happened.
Farmers push back on the tax funding it all
That land value tax is also drawing criticism from Federated Farmers, which described Opportunity’s land value tax – 1.75% on urban land and 0.5% on rural land – as poor policy, as reported by the Waikato Times’ Charlotte Graham, with the organisation’s spokesperson estimating it could cost the average farmer roughly five times what Labour’s shelved methane tax would have, hitting sheep and beef farmers hardest due to high land values paired with comparatively low cash flow.
Opportunity’s deputy leader, Daniel Eb, countered that the policy would be offset by the party’s “citizens’ income” and that hardship provisions, exemptions for conservation land, and a decade-long phase-in would soften the impact, framing the change as a nudge toward diversification into areas like carbon farming.
Where the support is coming from and why it matters so much right now
The stakes of all this are unusually high because Opportunity is sitting right on the electoral edge. And if you look beyond the top line polling numbers, as Toby Manhire has today, modelling suggests a shift of only a third of a percentage point could tip an otherwise National-led Parliament into one where Labour, the Greens, Te Pāti Māori and Opportunity could combine for government. If Opportunity instead wins an electorate seat, the threshold drops further, meaning even 4.7% would be enough to change the outcome and bring the party five seats.
Manhire also digs into where that support is actually coming from. Across recent polling, those backing Opportunity most commonly voted National in 2023, followed by TOP, Labour and NZ First. Despite that, Opportunity’s voters lean toward preferring a Labour-led government over a National-led one. The party has also tried to position itself as a rival to NZ First for the kingmaker role, though Talbot Mills found voters still favour the more established party for that job – except among Labour voters, who were evenly split between the two.
