The path to power for Chris Hipkins is incredibly small. At the moment the count is 67 for the Government, 57 for Labour/Greens/TPM and seven for Opportunity so 67 to 64.

There is a decent chance that NZ First could lose a party vote seat to Greens (or Opportunity) on specials. A friend has run some scenarios through Claude, and has calculated the following probabilities.

• No change 34%
• Left +1 19%
• Left +1, Right -1 21%
• Left +1, Left -1 11%
• Left +2, Right -1 9%

So around a 26% chance it goes to 66 to 65, and a 19% chance it is 67 to 65, and 51% chance it stays 67 to 64.

Let’s say it ends up 66 to 65.

Wairarapa is held by 139 seats. Claude estimates that there is a 27% chance it flips on specials. But this is the vital thing. Even if it flips it makes it 65 all, not 65 CR and 66 CL. Why? Because if Labour wins Wairarapa they lose a List MP.

So even if the left gain a party vote MP, and NZF lose a party vote MP, and Labour wins Wairarapa the outcome is not a Labour-led Government. It is a hung Parliament with 65 seats for the CR, 58 for the CL and 7 for Opportunity.

Opportunity can’t put Labour into power in this scenario. Their only choice is to allow National to govern, or to force a second election. And could you imagine the backlash if the party that claimed they are the sensible moderate party who can work with anyone, then forced a second election costing $180 million because actually they’d rather force another election than give National a chance.

So for a Hipkins led Government to occur, they would need to not just have the left gain a seat of NZ First, and Labour win Wairarapa. They would also need to flip Hamilton East, while not losing Mt Roskill and TPM not losing Te Tai Tokerau.

What does Claude say is the chance of that:

• Party vote specials cause left +1, right -1: 21%
• Labour wins Wairarapa: 27%
• Labour wins Hamilton East: 3%
• Labour retains Mt Roskill: 90%
• TPM retains Te Tai Tokerau: 98%

If these are all independent events (they are not), the chance is 0.15%. If you even just look at the most unlikely event of Labour winning Hamilton East the probability is 3%.

So according to Claude, the probability of Hipkins being able to form a Government with Opportunity is between 0.15% and 3%.

The probability of a hung Parliament is higher at around 6%.

So the odds of Luxon remaining Prime Minister are 94% or better I’d say. The chance for Hipkins is at best 3%. I know who I would rather be.

There are provisionally 131 MPs, a record high, in the 55th Parliament of New Zealand. There are 71 electorate MPs and 60 list MPs.

On Patreon, I have done a detailed analysis of the breakdown of not just Parliament as a whole, but for each party. This answers questions like:

• Which party is only 29% male?
• Which party is 58% Māori and Pacific?
• Which party is 43% under 40?
• Which two parties have no MPs from rural or small town NZ?
• Which party has 31% of its MPs Rainbow?
• Who is now the Father of the House? (It’s Chris Hipkins)

So the full data is paywalled, but the toppling summary data is below.

57% of MPs are male and 43% female. This compares to 49% and 51% respectively of the adult population.

The proportion of MPs who are female in recent Parliaments is:

• 2014 31%
• 2017 38%
• 2020 48%
• 2023 44%
• 2026 43%

A massive 35 MPs are Māori, which is 27% of Parliament. This is much much higher than the 15% of the adult population. 8% are Asian compared to 17% of the population., 5% are Pacific vs 7% of the population.

The age breakdown is:

• 20s: 4%
• 30s: 13%
• 40s: 38%
• 50s: 28%
• 60s: 16%
• 70s: 0%
• 80s: 1%

The breakdown by area is:

• Auckland 33%
• Wellington 10%
• Christchurch 10%
• Provincial Cities 24%
• Towns/Rural 24%

77% are in the North Island and 23% in the South Island.

9% of MPs are Rainbow, compared to 4% of the adult population.

Te Pāti Māori announced in August that they did not want party votes. They explicitly said they want to create overhang. Their MPs did not even party vote for TPM. And their strategy worked.

In 2023 they got 3.1%. In 2026 they got 0.6%. That is an 80% reduction in their party vote, or a 2.5 percentage point drop. In July they were polling around 3% in the polls.

If National had not also ended up with overhang, the TPM strategy would have succeeded, Their four seat overhang would have meant the left could easily govern with Opportunity.

Now National did also get an overhang, but this is more due to overperformance on winning electorates, rather than their party vote going to NZ First and ACT during the campaign. The promoters of the overhang strategy were explicitly calling for National voters to abandon National to boost the number of ACT and NZ First seats, while not decreasing the National seats.

National got 29%. Most polls in August and early September had National at 29%. There was no big exodus from National due to the overhang campaign. The exodus occurred a year earlier, due to dissatisfaction.

ACT and NZ First both did better than 2023. They got 11% and 10% respectively. But back in August and early September they were only slightly below that. There may have been some movement due to the overhang campaign, but it was extremely modest, if at all.

What really created the overhang was National over performing in electorates. Some of this will be ACT and NZ First party voters giving National the candidate vote, but this is very normal behaviour (just as Labour asked Green voters to vote for Labour candidates). The overhang campaign succeeded in terms of having people be more tactical with their electorate votes, but did not succeed in terms of driving significant party vote change. Also National candidate quality played a significant role. Blair Cameron was amazing to win Nelson. Dana Kirkpatrick stormed home in East Cape which on paper should have flipped. Greg Fleming kept Maungakiekie, reflecting what a great electorate MP he has been.

So overhang did impact the election outcome, but in very different ways. TPM started the overhang wars, and they succeeded. The counter campaign did not succeed in driving party vote changes, but did have an impact in terms of tactical voting in electorates.

I still favour legislating to get rid of overhang, but that is an issue for another day.

On my Patreon (paywalled) I write:

The Government currently has 67 seats out of 131, so a majority of three. They are in a good position to remain Government, but what could change with the final votes?

I have modelled below what the final result would be, if the special votes follow the same pattern as in 2023. We will look at party vote outcomes, and then possible outcomes in the six most marginal electorates with a majority of under 1,000.

This is based on the same behaviour as 2023. It will of course not be exactly the same. But this is the best modelling we can do, until we know what the actual special votes this time look like.

There are an estimated 399,365 special votes. This is down from 602,488 in 2023. 3.31% were invalid last time so the estimated valid specials are 386,151.

The 2023 data tells us how many percentage points better or worse a party did on specials than election night results. Then by applying that to the 2026 data, we get the following projected final outcome.

The full analysis is behind the paywall at Patreon.

Here are the provisional results vs the final pre-election polls.

The difference for each company vs the results was:

So Curia had an average error of 0.5%, which I am obviously very pleased with.

And whether the error was within the margin of error for a poll of 1,000 people.

These may change with final results, but overall pretty good. One company got 7/7, two got 6/7, two got 5/7 and one got 4/7

The results so far have 67 seats for the Government parties and 64 seats for the others.

National has 42 electorate seats. Those with a small majority are:

• Hamilton East 456
• Wairarapa 139

It is quite possible Wairarapa could flip on the specials votes but not likely Hamilton East would. If Hamilton East flips then you have Govt 66, Others 64.

Now on the party vote, National lost 2 seats on specials at the last election, and 1 seat on the elections before that. However due to overhang, losing seats on the party vote will not drop National’s number of seats. So the Government stays at say 66 (if Wairarapa flips).

The list seats on the provisional vote are:

116 Greens
117 Labour
118 NZ First
119 National
120 Labour

The worst case scenario is National and NZ First both lose a seat. This would take the Government to 65 seats. You would need both those seats to go to Labour and Greens to take the other parties to 66. Only then could Labour form a Government.

So for Labour to form a Government you need the following:

1. National loses Wairarapa
2. NZ First loses a list seat (not happened under MMP so far)
3. Both Labour and Greens gain a list seat
4. Opportunity to fail to negotiate an agreement with National (largest party)
5. Labour negotiates an agreement with Greens, Te Pati Maori and Opportunity, giving them a one seat majority

So it is mathematically possible, but highly improbable. If you end up with 65 seats for each bloc, then Opportunity and National would have to reach an agreement (as Opportunity would be unable to get Labour across the line), or force a second election which the public would hate.

The Free Speech Union released:

Twisted Frequency, a New Year music festival in Golden Bay, has cancelled Israeli DJ Dekel because he has not spoken out against Israel.

The festival says it was told Dekel had been a commander in the Israeli Defence Force and had performed in Israel in recent years. When it heard this, it contacted his management to cancel the booking.

It says it also tried to find evidence about his views, and found nothing “verified and substantial” about his personal beliefs. It went ahead with cancelling him anyway, saying “the fact he hasn’t spoken out against the genocide in Palestine and has continued to perform in Israel is all that is needed”.

The festival says a country of origin alone isn’t a reason to boycott a musician. But without a public statement from Dekel against the “ongoing occupation and genocide”, it would not host him.

The Festival of course has the right to invite or disinvite people, but let’s not pretend this isn’t about the country of origin.

There is a simple comparison one can do. The Government of China has also been accused of committing crimes against Muslims, in this case Uyghurs. Some have also labelled that a genocide.

Has any music or literary festival ever ever gone and told a Chinese artist that they are banned from performing unless they issue a public statement against the treatment of Muslim Uyghurs by the Chinese Government?

Of course not.

Which is how we can safely conclude it is not about what is happening to a group of Muslims. It is about being Jewish or Israeli.

It’s Election Day. Until the polls close at 7 pm don’t make any comments that could be seen as advocating for who people should vote.

I’ll be on the Herald Now broadcast from 7 pm with Ryan Bridge and other panelists, discussing the results at they come in.

The bean counters at the Taxpayers’ Union have done a final update on the extra spending that each party is promising.

So there are two fiscally responsible parties, two fiscally irresponsible parties and three fiscally insane parties. Vote wisely if you don’t want your kids paying off a generation of debt.

The Post reports:

Opportunity looks likely to enter Parliament – and potentially decide who governs.

This has led to questions over how exactly the untested party would actually make the call.

Any coalition deal would be negotiated by the party’s caucus of MPs, but would need to be signed off by its seven-member board.

Opportunity’s constitution says any coalition or confidence and supply deal its MPs negotiate must be approved by 75% of the party’s seven-member board, meaning any two board members effectively hold the power to block any coalition deal if the party acts as kingmaker.

So two people you have never heard of can determine who forms the Government of New Zealand, if Opportunity hold the balance of power.

One of their board members is also one of their largest donors. So they are campaigning against money in politics, yet are giving the guy who donated $220,000 to them a partial veto over who forms the Government of New Zealand, if they get in!

The track record of polls in New Zealand has generally been pretty good. 1993 and 2005 not so good, but most other years pretty reasonable.

If ever there is an election where the polls are more likely to diverge from the results, it has to be this one. And this is because there are so many competing tactical voting campaigns out there, and with significant interest in them. This means more people are confused about how to vote to get the outcome they want, and that polls even a week out from the election may differ quite a bit from the final result. That is on top of the normal issues from the sampling margins of error and non-sampling errors.

We currently have:

• National Party voters being told by one former leader that the best way to help National is not to vote for them, and being told by another former leader to two tick National.
• Left voters being told to vote Opportunity to ensure they make 5%
• Left voters being told not to vote Opportunity because they may go with National
• ACT voters being told to give their electorate votes to National to help with overhang seats, except in Epsom and Tamaki where they should vote ACT candidates
• Te Pāti Māori voters being told not to give their party votes to TPM, to the extent that even TPM MPs are not voting for their own party!
• Green voters being told by Labour activists they must give their electorate votes to Labour candidates to stop overhang
• Uncertainty over whether a vote for Opportunity will be “wasted” or not

There has never been an election campaign where tactical issues has been so much to the fore. I think there will be people voting on Saturday who know what outcome they want, but will only decide at the booth how to vote to achieve that.

The size and time weighted average of the public polls has the following

Government

• National 28.1%, 34 seats
• ACT 10.2%, 12 seats
• NZ First 10.1%, 12 seats
• Govt total 48.4%, 58 seats

Opposition

• Labour 28.8%, 35 seats
• Greens 14.8%, 18 seats
• Te Pāti Māori 1.2%, 1 seat
• Opposition Total 44.7%, 54 seats

Opportunity 6.2%, 8 seats

The seat projections are on party vote only. No assumptions are made on overhang.

I’ve been on a what’s app group for National Party volunteers in my local electorate. I’ve been insanely busy with scores of polls, parenting and speaking engagements so have only twice had time to do some pamphlet delivering.

But what has been refreshing and even inspiring to me is seeing these dozens of volunteers, who age from 20 to 70s, every day putting their hands up saying they can door knock here, deliver here, turn up for mobile hoardings etc etc. The candidate and his family are also spending all their time trying to get people to two tick National.

Now my local electorate is not a marginal seat. It is a very red seat, so short of divine intervention the candidate and the volunteers know they are not going to win the seat.

But that doesn’t deter them. Because they believe in their party, they believe in the political system, they have values and beliefs about what is good for New Zealand, and they are willing to give up hundreds of hours in trying to make New Zealand a better place.

This is not something unique to National. All parties have volunteers who put in numerous hours because they believe in their party. They do not have any expectations of being MPs, being on boards or in any way benefiting from their efforts.

We often think of politics as about MPs, candidates, donors, lobby groups, media etc. But for me I like to think it is about volunteers. The ones who day after day get up early because they believe in politics and believe in New Zealand.

Simeon Brown points out:

The Green Party has confirmed National’s warnings about its wealth tax, with Chloe Swarbrick accidentally admitting the party wants to lower the $10 million threshold once the tax is in place, National’s Campaign Chair Simeon Brown says.

“In an interview last night on The Kaka, Chloe Swarbrick said ‘winning the argument is critical’, explaining that the Greens had chosen a $10 million threshold to avoid ‘mass moral panic’ about the wealth tax hitting family homes.

“She then let the real plan slip – ‘if we implement it, and we demonstrate to people that it works then hopefully there is also the continuing arguments to obviously lower the threshold.’

“There you have it. Ten million dollars is where the Greens want to start, not where they intend to stop.

Chloe accidentally spoke the truth, and revealed their plan. They don’t just want to tax the assets of the very wealthy, they want to eventually come for anyone who manages to save well during their lifetime.

I received the following e-mail from Candace Owens:

I hope you will actually report on the dropping of my case and also correct your previous inaccurate info on what they sued me for (it was not for saying Brigette was a man)

https://youtube.com/post/UgkxsjkxGaLUCqG4QU-lnli7m5k-14Y6zeQT?si=O8xrLViWsxyhoTOz

I don’t agree with the framing of what was decided. Politico reports:

A Delaware state judge ruled Tuesday that French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte, may not sue far-right commentator Candace Owens personally for defamation — but they may continue their case against the podcaster’s businesses.

It certainly is a useful win for Owens that she is personally not liable, but the substantive case will proceed against her business.

The blue wave turned into a blue tsunami. It is one thing to lose a Texas Senate seat with a weak GOP candidate, but they also lost the Texas Governorship, and they had a popular incumbent. They also lost Kansas Senate seat for the first time since the 1930s.

In the House, the Democrats looked to have outpolled the GOP by 13%. They look to have 256 seats to 178. This means that they will hold the House in 2028, and probably be able to even withstand a bad year in 2030.

In the Senate they look likely to end up with 55 seats. This also means they should hold it until at least 2030 and possibly beyond. So don’t expect any Supreme Court retirements any time soon. In fact if Trump remains this unpopular it is not impossible the Democrats could get to 60 seats in 2028 meaning they can get past a filibuster.

So I imagine we are going to see a lot of bills get vetoed by Trump, and a lot of executive action. In the very short term, another attack on Iran is probably only days away.

The Democrats must be looking good for winning the presidency in 2028. Jon Ossoff especially looks good after winning by 18% in Georgia. AOC will be thinking about it seriously also.

On the GOP side, I think it is very possible that top tier candidates such as JD Vance and Marco Rubio don’t even stand in 2028, calculating it is an unwinnable election.

We should see the first candidacies announced before Christmas.

Roger Douglas released:

Muldoon Is Back — Only the Names Have Changed: 

ACT’s proposed KiwiSaver tax exemption risks repeating the mistakes of New Zealand’s protected economic past

ACT’s proposal to make KiwiSaver investment earnings tax-free raises an important question: is this good economic policy, or is it an attempt to win votes by offering another special tax concession?

The proposal brings to mind the Muldoon era, when governments used tax incentives, protectionism and preferential treatment to steer private savings and investment towards favoured sectors of the economy. The names may have changed, but the underlying temptation remains the same: use the tax system to influence economic behaviour for political advantage.

New Zealand has been down this road before.

The lessons of 1970–1984

Between 1970 and 1984, New Zealand operated a highly protected economy characterised by extensive government intervention, import restrictions and policies that favoured selected industries. The financial services and insurance sectors benefited from tax concessions and other arrangements that influenced where household savings were invested.

One significant example was the tax treatment of life insurance premiums and superannuation contributions. Under the arrangements applying to particular products and periods, tax concessions encouraged households to direct savings into favoured financial products.

These incentives helped make certain products more attractive to investors, but they also raised a fundamental economic question: were savings being allocated to their most productive uses, or were tax advantages distorting investment decisions?

Other features of the era included extensive tariff protection, restrictions on competition in some markets and tax arrangements that favoured particular business activities.

The result was an economic environment in which government policy often influenced commercial decisions as much as genuine market opportunities did.

New Zealand’s sweeping economic reforms from 1984 onwards sought to dismantle many of these protections and reduce distortions in the economy.

The lesson: tax loopholes can reward inefficiency

The central lesson from this period is straightforward: when governments favour particular investments through the tax system, they risk rewarding tax advantages rather than economic performance.

In a competitive market, investors should be encouraged to put their money into businesses and assets that generate genuine economic value. When the tax system favours government selected investments, however, it can encourage people to invest for tax reasons rather than because those investments offer the best productive opportunities.

This can distort the allocation of capital, create unnecessary complexity, entrench established interests and leave other productive sectors at a disadvantage.

Tax concessions may benefit those who receive them, but that does not automatically mean they deliver a net benefit to the wider economy.

KiwiSaver deserves better than political tax incentives

KiwiSaver plays an important role in helping New Zealanders save for retirement. But that does not mean every tax concession aimed at KiwiSaver is necessarily sound policy.

Making KiwiSaver investment earnings tax-free would give the scheme a significant tax advantage over other forms of investment. Before introducing such a change, the public deserves clear answers to several questions:

• What would the proposal cost in forgone government revenue?
• Who would receive the greatest financial benefit, and how would the gains be distributed?
• Would it generate genuinely additional savings and productive investment, or mainly shift existing investments into a more tax-favoured structure?
• Would the benefits justify the cost to taxpayers and the potential distortions to other investment choices?

These are questions of economic substance, not political marketing.

If the objective is to improve retirement outcomes, the policy should be assessed against credible evidence about its impact on savings, investment, retirement incomes and the wider economy. A tax exemption should not be accepted simply because it sounds attractive to voters.

The politics of a familiar mistake

The danger is that New Zealand could repeat an old mistake under a new name: using selective tax concessions to win political support while presenting them as economic reform.

The Muldoon era demonstrated the risks of an economy in which government intervention and preferential treatment shaped investment decisions. The reforms that followed reflected a recognition that economic performance improves when incentives are less distorted and capital can move towards its most productive uses.

ACT should explain why its proposed KiwiSaver exemption would produce a better result than the targeted tax incentives of the past. It should demonstrate that the policy would improve New Zealand’s economic performance, rather than simply provide a tax advantage to one category of investment.

New Zealand does not need to return to an era of politically driven economic incentives. It needs a tax system that is fair, transparent and focused on productive investment.

Muldoon may be gone, but the temptation to use tax policy for political advantage remains. Seymour and Prebble should take heed of the lessons of history before asking New Zealanders to pay for another round of special treatment.

Results will start showing shortly.

The final forecast from Nat Silver is:

House

• Democrats at 96% probability to gain control
• Seat average forecast is Democrats 241, Republicans 194
• Popular vote forecast is Democrats +7.9%`

Senate

• Democrats at 82% probability to gain control
• Seat average forecast is Democrats 53, Republicans 47

Feel free to comment below as results come in.

RNZ reports:

Labour is promising to help public housing tenants buy their own homes, putting $100 a week towards their deposits under a new rent-to-buy scheme.

Under the election policy, working tenants in Kāinga Ora homes and participating community housing properties would be able to build up a deposit while paying rent.

They would receive a $100 weekly credit, adding up to $5200 a year, with the money held in a trust account.

I think helping state tenants become homeowners is a great idea in principle.

However I do recall that when National governments had policies to encourage tenants to buy their homes, Labour called it privatisation!!

This specific policy though is not going to achieve much, if anything. A reader has pointed out the following:

Financially it’s nuts and more expensive than just renting.  But then there is rates, insurance, maintenance etc to pay. 

As KO will guarantee the mortgage (few KO tenants would qualify for a mortgage) where does the tenant obtain a mortgage?  Oh of course, KO will provide. 

Therefore KO will blow out their debt ceiling once again because they have said they will build three more units for each one sold 

Let’s say a KO unit is worth say:

KO Unit cost:     $500,000

Deposit:              $50,000

Mortgage           $ 450,000

Interest say 6%

Term say 25 years

Monthly repayment P&I

Per month $2,900

Total interest over 25 years is $419,807 

Let’s say the rent is $500 a week but a mortgage is $669 a week so the tenant is already $199 a week worse off and he has to pay rates and insurance plus maintenance which even conservatively would add a further $125 a week to the mortgage 

Who in their right mind would buy a KO unit and pay an extra $324 a week more than the rent?

It’s another  nut job Labour plan