Policy makes it easy to find out what’s on offer this election.

Policy draws on publicly available information about the key election policies of New Zealand’s political parties, puts them all in one place and presents them in a consistent and accessible way. You can favourite policies as you browse and see a breakdown of which you like.

Why does Policy exist?

We made Policy because we think it’s important for New Zealanders to easily have access to information about where the political parties stand on the key issues. Voting is a big deal but it can be surprisingly hard to make an informed choice, even if you really want to.

Where did you get the policies?

On the internet! All the policies we’ve included are based on material published on the parties’ official websites or in press releases published through our content partner, Scoop. Sometimes a government website is cited where useful, and news websites when absolutely necessary.

Are all policies included?

There’s only room for five policies on each issue but some parties have a whole lot more. Our aim is to present the most important policies from each party on the key issues.

This means we include policies that the party talks about often and which are presented prominently on the party’s website. Sometimes we include policies where it provides a useful comparison to those included from other parties.

Are the policies up to date?

Policy is updated daily. You can expect a delay of no more than a day between new policy announcements and their publication on Policy.

Why are the policies worded differently to those on the parties’ websites?

We paraphrase policies to make them easier to understand and compare.

The parties sometimes explain their policies in complicated ways using technical words or jargon. We try to get to the heart of what the party is promising to explain it simply and clearly.

Different parties can also talk about similar policies in different ways. This makes it hard to see where the real differences actually are. We paraphrase similar policies in similar ways to make this easier.

If you want to see a policy in its original form, take a look at the citations we present with every policy on the desktop version of the site.

Where are the other parties?

Only parties with a seat in the current Parliament, or polling over one per cent as at 1 August in the Radio New Zealand “Poll of Polls” aggregation, have been included.

The Electoral Commission keeps a list of all registered parties, as does Wikipedia.

Where are the other topics?

For now we’ve focussed on the issues that are being talked about the most ahead of the election. Our aim is to include other topics — like energy and constitutional issues — in the future.

Does Policy have an agenda?

Policy is not affiliated with any political party and is proudly non-partisan. We strive to treat all parties fairly and their policies accurately.

Are you telling me how to vote?

Your vote is yours, use it how you like. Policy exists to make it easier to understand the policies before you vote, but there’s a lot more to voting than this. You could vote for someone because you trust them, because your mum knows them, or because their name is first on the ballot.

But if you do use Policy to help make your decision on whom to vote for, there’s some things you should keep in mind.

Some parties have more policies than others on any given issue. That might be because they don’t care about it that much or might be because they have one great policy which they think will solve the whole issue. Simple arithmetic — which is how Policy generates your personalised graph — won’t address these factors.

Likewise, it won’t take account of how much you care about different issues. Maybe you think climate change is far more important than housing. But if you favourite two housing policies from the Lime Party and one climate policy from the Banana Party, the graph will show a greater proportion of Lime Party policies favourited.

Are my favourited policies kept private?

You can’t be personally identified by the information this website collects. Policy does collect aggregate information about user policy preferences, but your individual preferences cannot be traced to you. You can, however, share your list of policies on social media or by sharing specific link and different privacy policies will apply on other websites. You can find out more this in our privacy policy.

Who made this?

Policy was made by a team of researchers, editors, developers and a designer, who all want to help make election information more accessible. Policy is published by The Spinoff, which likes to try new things.

Policy wouldn’t be here without the very generous support of our lead sponsor, Chapman Tripp, and our supporters, the Institute for Governance and Policy Studies at Victoria University of Wellington, Grant Thornton, Muffin Break, iwantmyname and Scoop.

Editorial and project direction | Asher Emanuel and Ollie Neas
Product design and creative direction | Racheal Reeves
Editorial supervision | Toby Manhire
Operations | Chris McIntyre
Research | Sam Bigwood, Michael Graham and Owen Wilkinson
Development |Rox Flame, Laura Munro, Alex Matthews and Thomas Murphy

Corrections

Factual corrections are welcomed and should be directed to corrections@policy.nz.