While most focus is on the prospects of four or five major parties, a range of smaller parties are fighting for the vote from the edges
The roadsides of New Zealand have become a veritable forest of billboards as a revolving gallery of political parties vie for voter attention.
But while some of the faces beaming down on passing Kiwis are recognisable enough – your Winstons, your Seymours, a Chris of either stripe – there are plenty of new faces to join them.
A sizeable list of smaller parties is also trying to scrabble their way over the five percent precipice, or take an electorate by storm. Some of these have been around for years, and some are new.
READ MORE: * The potential coalition complications for major parties * Why the crossbenches are a minority sport
Most have either formed or rebranded in the 18 months since the Parliament protest – a moment that proved something of a petri dish for political followings based on ill-will towards mandates, lockdowns and the United Nations.
You’d be forgiven for not knowing the whole layout of these smaller parties. Fraying alliances and electoral deadlines have changed the small party landscape in the past few months. In an attempt to map the edges of New Zealand’s political discourse, Newsroom has looked into just who each of these smaller parties are.
All poll data referenced comes from the latest 1News Verian poll.
Vision New Zealand
Slogan: The party for all Kiwis
The political arm of Brian Tamaki’s Destiny Church is led by his wife, Hannah Tamaki. This will be the second election the party has contested after receiving 4,236 votes in 2020, or around 0.1 percent of the total vote.
Since then the party has somewhat confusingly become a component party of Freedoms New Zealand, an umbrella party also sheltering Sue Grey’s Outdoors & Freedom party.
The coalition was formed in August of last year by Brian Tamaki, who asked New Zealand First, New Conservative and Gaurav Sharma to join up in an opening speech. They all declined.
Labour, National, Act and the Greens have all ruled out working with the coalition.
Nevertheless, its component parts soldier on campaigning in their own stead.
The umbrella party of Freedoms NZ means candidates will generally continue to campaign as representatives of their own parties, but party votes can only be given to Freedoms NZ.
Vision New Zealand described itself as centre-right, but is perhaps better described as right-wing populist with a Christian fundamentalist foundation.
The party opposes abortion, homosexuality, gender education, euthanasia, cannabis legalisation and would create a Minister for Men and a Minister for Families.
Notable members include Karl Mokaraka – who has appeared out of the blue at critical moments for Hipkins, Luxon and Seymour to ask them why they haven’t been visiting Ōtara.
Mokaraka is Vision’s candidate for Ōtahuhu-Panmure, although the most visible moments of his campaign have come from heckling politicians at their own events.
He’s popped up over the fence behind Christopher Luxon to quiz him on his South Auckland campaign, followed Chris Hipkins through a market and donned a fake moustache to get into Act’s campaign launch at Auckland’s Civic Theatre.
Even at the first leaders' debate he was outside the venue with a big smile on his face, although it seems some strict security measures by TVNZ prevented him from gaining access.
The party’s connection to Destiny Church gives it access to crowds of on-the-ground support other parties don’t have. The concurrent protest down in Aotea Square on the day of Posie Parker’s visit to Auckland was a good example, where motorcyclists and muscle from the church’s Man Up Tu Tangata movement filled out the crowd.
Donations: The umbrella party Freedoms NZ has received $139,052 in declared donations, while Vision NZ itself has received $48,000 on top of that.
Polling: Vision NZ is polling at 0.2 percent, although all of the component parts of Freedoms NZ are polling together at nearer to one percent.
DemocracyNZ
Slogan: Freedom to choose
Former National Party MP for Northland Matt King was ousted from his seat by Labour’s Willow-Jean Prime by just 163 votes back in 2020.
As 40th on the list, it seemed this was the end for King down at Parliament – at least until the parliamentary protest at the beginning of last year, where King distanced himself from the National Party and cemented a following based on opposition to vaccine mandates and lockdowns.
DemocracyNZ’s platform is based around scepticism over the Government’s pandemic response, cutting climate policy and distancing New Zealand from the World Health Organisation and the United Nations.
The party’s biggest chance of reaching government probably lies in Northland, where King has already won the seat before, and the pendulum swinging away from Labour leaves many of the votes that went to Prime in 2020 up for grabs.
But the right is a crowded field in Northland. National’s Grant McCallum will take most of the past National voters swinging back to the right.
King also has to provide something fresh to compete with New Zealand First’s Shane Jones, a heavy hitter who is running on some similar lines of discourse around opposing the UN, gender education and climate action.
Donations: The party has at present declared $20,000 worth of donations.
Polling: 0.2 percent
Leighton Baker Party
Slogan: Vote liars out. Vote trust in.
Another party revolving around a single leader whose popularity was enshrined during the Parliament protests, the Leighton Baker Party has a similar platform to many other parties made concrete during that time.
That means opposition to vaccine mandates, lockdowns, gender education, relationships with extra-national organisations like the UN.
Baker was leader of the New Conservative Party – now New Conservatives – from 2017 to 2020, when a low election result saw him replaced as leader by his deputy, Elliot Ikilei.
In June of this year, Baker came back with his eponymous party, which is running candidates in Waimakariri, Bay of Plenty and Wigram.
Perhaps the highest profile supporter of the party is Baker’s own daughter.
Chantelle Baker rose to prominence during the Parliament protests with her frequent livestreams and social media savvy. She’s been described as both an influencer and a far-right activist, and now works as a host on Voices for Freedom’s online radio station, Reality Check Radio.
The Leighton Baker Party joins the small ranks of parties named after people, although the McGillicuddy Serious Party and the Bill and Ben Party were both named at least partially after their founders' pseudonyms.
New Conservatives
Slogan: Let’s smile again
Baker’s old team have rebranded yet again. First they were the Conservative Party, then New Conservative, and now New Conservatives with an approachable lower-case font and a new cheerful slogan: let’s smile again.
It comes with the party saying it’s moved to a more centrist position.
Nevertheless, they are still running on a platform of opposition to gender self-identification, Covid-19 restrictions and abortion.
Other policies include keeping restrictions on genetic engineering, which they call “playing God”, rejecting co-governance, and a tax-free income threshold of $20,000.
The party which was once lead by Colin Craig and then Leighton Baker has more recently been led by the double act of Ted Johnston and Helen Houghton.
Former Auckland mayoral candidate Johnston is running for the seat in Auckland Central, and appears to have stepped back from the party leadership role, leaving Houghton to it.
Houghton is a former teacher who came to politics through her opposition to gender diversity being taught in schools, and is running in Christchurch East.
New Conservatives received more than 40,000 party votes in 2020 – around 1.48 percent of the total vote, and a significant improvement on their previous result. It was a higher vote yield than higher-profile parties like Te Pāti Māori.
Polling: 0.1 percent
New Zealand Loyal
Slogan: Loyal to You, Not to Them
Former television and radio presenter Liz Gunn gained a small following during the early days of the pandemic, railing against vaccine mandates and lockdowns on livestream.
She had prominent roles during the Parliament protests and the saga of Baby W, acting as a spokesperson for the parents who were refusing to allow their child a blood transfusion of vaccinated blood.
In June of this year, nearly two years after her first livestream, Gunn dropped a 22-minute video unveiling her plans to start a political party – New Zealand Loyal.
Her opening speech decried water fluoridation, 1080, “gender programming”, 15-minute cities, tax, media “glove puppets” and Christopher Luxon, who she called a “pathetic little creature”.
In an act of faith in her supporters, Gunn said she would only give the party a week to attain the 500 signatures it needed to register.
They were successful and the billboards went up around the country, mostly with Gunn herself smiling down on passing pedestrians and motorists in a butter-yellow turtleneck, the sun setting over the ocean behind her.
Below her face is the party slogan: Loyal to you, not to them.
The party website details who the you and the them in question are: Gunn is loyal to New Zealanders, not to globalists.
It follows that the leading policy is ending participation in the United Nations, World Economic Forum and the World Health Organisation. She also wants a moratorium on immigration, an end to climate action, and a move away from the fiat money system.
But something went “terribly wrong” last week in the party’s final list registration, and New Zealand Loyal now has just two registered candidates actually up for office.
Gunn is still pushing for five percent, now arguing a vote for New Zealand Loyal could mean fewer MPs in Parliament: “Those party votes for NZ Loyal that look as if they are now a throwaway vote in fact turn into a giant, one fingered salute,” she told her followers in a video posted last week.
Polling: 1.2 percent
Animal Justice Party Aotearoa New Zealand
This recently formed party was inspired by a similarly named party in Australia that’s had some small electoral wins since its formation in 2009.
Whanganui candidate Sandra Kyle told the New Zealand Herald the party’s creation was a case of “a bunch of vegans flying the plane as we built it”.
Animal Justice Aotearoa’s policy platform includes ending experimentation on animals, establishing a commissioner for animals, reviewing the animal welfare act and extending live export bans.
It would also end the use of animals in entertainment, giving greyhounds and racehorses more protections and abolishing rodeo events.
The party has 17 candidates running across the country, including 18-year-old Lily Carrington running for Hamilton East and the aforementioned Kyle, who at 74 has a long history of animal activism.
Polling at: 0.3 percent
Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party
Since 1996 and the first MMP election, New Zealand’s most prominent single-issue party have been pushing for cannabis and hemp legalisation.
Human rights lawyer Michael Appleby has led the party through most of its near-30-year history, now with Northland’s Maki Herbert as co-leader.
The party platform calls for legalising cannabis use, expunging personal use convictions and capitalising on what it sees as the untapped profits of the dual industries of hemp and cannabis for both medicinal and recreational use.
Some big names have been attached to the party in the past: Tim Shadbolt, Nándor Tánczos, Metiria Turei, Dakta Green.
This time around candidates like Christopher Coker, running for Auckland Central, are adding some colour to the debates. Coker has been showing up at political events in a cannabis leaf print suit, calling on Aucklanders to give their party and electorate vote to the ALCP.
Polling: 0.4 percent
New Nation Party
Slogan: Welcome to REAL democracy
Another party registered just this year, New Nation was briefly a part of the Freedoms New Zealand umbrella with Sue Grey and Brian Tamaki.
But now the party’s going it alone, led by Wellington electricity entrepreneur Michael Jacomb.
New Nation wants to restructure the electricity sector, cut government debt and ban state funding of the media.
Along with this it would take New Zealand out of the United Nations and resume oil and gas exploration immediately.
The party also wants to investigate the decriminalisation of marijuana – a surprising policy alongside its menu of otherwise conservative options.
In its second term, New Nation would push for a binding referendum on whether to retain MMP.
In some ways it’s a kamikaze move. A shift back to First-Past-the-Post would obliterate the chances of many of the smaller parties on this list, including New Nation.
Polling: 0.3 percent
NewZeal
Slogan: Working together for the good of the country
Formerly known as the ONE Party, NewZeal is a socially conservative Christian party led by former National MP Alfred Ngaro.
Ngaro was elected as a list-only candidate for National in 2011, and eventually served as Minister for Pacific Peoples, Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector, Associate Minister for Children, and Associate Minister for Social Housing.
Like Matt King, National’s result in 2020 saw him ousted from Parliament. He left with a dawn prayer to the nation from the steps of the Beehive.
Now he’s back with NewZeal, a party that opposes abortion, gender self-identification, big spending by government.
The party received 8,121 party votes under its former name in 2020.
Polling: 0.2 percent
NZ Outdoors & Freedom Party
Environmental lawyer Sue Grey joined the party in 2020, bringing with her supporters from the recently-defunct Ban 1080 Party.
NZ Outdoors & Freedom are another part of the Freedoms NZ umbrella, which has seen Grey teaming up with the Tamakis.
Grey’s party has more of a focus on the environmental side than others who were protesting at Parliament last year.
The party opposes fluoridation of water, 1080 poison and is worried about the effect of 5G towers on people’s health.
These policies join a list of more mainstream environmental wants – freshwater protections, regenerative agriculture and animal welfare.
Since Covid, Grey’s activism has revved up a gear, and attracted its fair share of controversy.
She had the help of far-right activist Kyle Chapman in distributing anti-vaccine leaflets around Christchurch, and represented the parents of Baby W in November of last year.
Her shift into politics has seen her running for the Nelson seat in 2020, finishing sixth, and then contesting the Tauranga seat in the 2022 by-election, where she came fourth.
This time around, Grey is a list-only candidate for Freedoms NZ and an electorate candidate for NZ Outdoors & Freedom in West Coast-Tasman.
The umbrella party of Freedoms NZ sees individual candidates going for the electorate votes for the component parties, but party votes can only be given to Freedoms NZ.
Polling: 0.2 percent
Women's Rights Party
Slogan: Protect sex-based rights
This party was formed by former Labourites Jill Ovens and Dawn Trenberth, following anti-transgender activist Posie Parker’s visit to New Zealand in March.
First on the list is trade unionist Jill Ovens, who quit the Labour Party the night of the Albert Park protest, having become “increasingly off-side” with the party line and saying women’s voices were not being listened to.
The party platform is mostly based around upholding binary views of sex and gender, preventing trans women from accessing female spaces and resisting language that portrays gender and sex as a continuum.
