Read this first: two scores, and the words this report uses

• The question: how well each party answers the issues voters say matter most right now.
• Weighted by what voters name as their top worries (Ipsos, September 2026). Cost of living carries a third of the weight.
• Tests: real cause, a working mechanism, funding, delivery, and will people feel it before the next election (late 2029)?

• The question: how well its plans prepare New Zealand for what we can already see coming.
• Weighted by what matters most for New Zealand by 2050 (our judgement, set out on the Method page).
• Tests: the same first four, then: does it build for the future or borrow from it, will it survive a change of government, and does it say who pays?

• 65 or more is strong, 50 to 64 fair, 35 to 49 weak, under 35 poor.
• Current settings are scored too: what happens if nothing new is done. A party below them leaves New Zealand worse placed than doing nothing new.
• Not a recommendation. A tax rise and a spending cut can both score well.

• Right bloc: 60 seats on the poll average, one short; with Opportunity's 7 it reaches 67.
• Left bloc: 53 seats; with Opportunity it makes 60, still one short.
• National rules Opportunity out; ACT says a four-party deal "would be a good outcome".

• Opportunity is close to the 5% line in one of the two polls. Below 5% with no electorate, its seats are shared out and the right bloc reaches about 64 on its own (our calculation).
• An overhang. If Te Pāti Māori wins more electorates than its party vote earns, Parliament grows and so does the bar to govern (1News: 124 seats, 63 needed).

• Enrolment closes at midnight on 25 October, with no same-day enrolment. Advance voting opens 26 October; election day is Saturday 7 November.
• About 55,000 special votes are expected to be disallowed under the new rules, five times 2023. [8]
• Te Pāti Māori asks supporters to give their party vote to Labour or the Greens.

On voter priorities, National, Labour, Opportunity and ACT all beat current settings. On readiness for 2050, only National does, mostly because its plans are costed and deliverable, not because they change the long-run path. ACT matches current settings; Labour and Opportunity sit just below.

Every plan leaves public debt higher in 2050 than today, on our projection from each party's own figures. The gaps between parties are smaller than the uncertainty in any 25-year forecast, so read this as a test of resilience: how much room each plan leaves for the next shock. [1]

Of 104 answers scored, only 11 would bring noticeable relief before the next election, and none would bring broad, measured relief. Labour has seven of the 11; National and the Greens two each. Most promises have no start date, or land after 2029.

Only ACT builds on ageing and the fiscal gap; Opportunity on productivity; the Greens and Opportunity on climate and infrastructure. NZ First borrows on all four; National and Labour hold the current path.

Three of seven parties say nothing on engineered pandemics. No party addresses AI systems escaping human control. Almost none plans to work with other countries on trust and governance.

National, Labour and ACT publish full costed plans; Labour's was checked by an accounting firm it hired. The Greens, Te Pāti Māori and Opportunity cost their taxes, not their whole platform. NZ First publishes none. No party's costs are independently verified.

The Super age stays at 65 and Paris withdrawal is on the table. Its spending has no published funding, so debt risk rises.

He rules it out over its land tax, though the land tax is not one of its bottom lines. On the poll average, holding that line leaves no bloc with a majority.

A minority government on confidence and supply becomes likely, and long-term reforms get harder to pass.

No likely government changes the long-run debt path much: National and Labour hold it where current settings put it.