The National Party is promising to modernise New Zealand’s sexual consent laws if re-elected. Currently, New Zealand has no positive definition of consent in legislation, instead only providing a list of situations in which consent cannot be given.

Writing for Newsroom in December 2025, Professor Anna High from the University of Otago said this ambiguity has led to situations where courts have assumed consent “even when a person has not communicated their free and willing agreement”.

In a statement, the National Party’s Paul Goldsmith says, “Importantly, these changes will not shift the burden of proof in sexual cases. The prosecution will still need to prove beyond reasonable doubt that consent wasn’t given, and that the defendant didn’t believe on reasonable grounds that it was.”

The Labour Party supports the change, but claims the National Party walked away from previous cross-party discussions on the topic in order to use the issue for their campaign.

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