Is TOP a centrist party?

Ani O’Brien writes:

Every election cycle, like clockwork, Opportunity (TOP) reappears. It refreshes its branding, gets a new leader, rolls out a new slate of candidates, and the media, just as predictably, froths over them. Since Gareth Morgan founded the party in 2016, this has become a familiar ritual in New Zealand politics.

Their results have been:

• 2017: Gareth Morgan 2.4%
• 2020 Geoff Simmons 1.5%
• 2023: Raf Manji 2.2%

The language TOP uses, the issues it elevates, and the solutions it proposes sit squarely within the worldview of the contemporary Left. Climate transition, inequality, child poverty, biodiversity, housing equity, “regenerative” economic systems, co-governance, and a persistent critique of “short-term politics”. This is a standard issue framework of modern Leftist politics, but delivered in a tone designed to sound above it all. There is a moral narrative underpinning it that systems are failing, outcomes are unjust, the current model is unsustainable, and the answer lies in structural reform guided by experts to produce fairer and more equitable results.

None of this is inherently illegitimate. But it is not ideologically neutral. It is a more polished, less confrontational version of the same arguments that animate Labour and the Greens. TOP’s point of difference is not in what it believes, but in how it presents those beliefs. It strips out the activist rhetoric, softens the edges, and wraps the whole thing in the language of rationality and competence. It is Left-wing politics for people who do not like the current aesthetic of Left-wing politics.

In the unlikely event that TOP made 5% and got into Parliament, I would say there is a 99.9% chance they would support a Labour/Green/Te Pati Maori Government over the current Government.