Policy.nz gathers essential information about the policies and candidates of New Zealand’s political parties together in one place, so you can make an informed vote this election. You can favourite policies and candidates to help you decide who to vote for.
All the policies are based on the parties’ official websites, policy documents, press releases and social media posts. Sometimes we include citations to government or news websites where useful. You can find links to original sources by clicking on a policy.
Policy.nz is updated daily. Summaries of newly released policies are published as soon as possible after they are announced, and usually within 48 hours depending on capacity within our small team.
Information about the candidates is gathered from the candidates themselves. Candidates’ responses are left in their own words. Policy.nz edits responses only for spelling and typos.
We publish summaries of all policies that a party is campaigning on this election, based on our assessment of publicly available sources. In most cases, that is all policies included in documents published on the party’s website. However, our assessment of what amounts to a policy may vary from the parties’ assessment.
We summarise policies from all political parties that are either currently represented in Parliament, or who have polled at 3 percent or more in a nationally recognised poll during 2026.
All parties that will appear on the ballot for the party vote are included in our list of party profiles, and all candidates are included in our list of candidate profiles.
Some registered parties are not contesting the party vote, and a party doesn’t need to register if it is standing only electorate candidates. A candidate who is running for a party will have that party's name on this website and on voting papers.
We provide basic information about all candidates, such as their name, party affiliation and what electorate they are running in. This includes all candidates whose nominations, either on a party list or in an electorate, are confirmed by the Electoral Commission at vote.nz.
We give all registered and unregistered political parties that we know of an opportunity to provide information about their candidates.
We ask all candidates questions about their background, motivations and priorities. This information is included only if the candidate responds to our questions.
We have provided all registered and unregistered political parties that we know of with an opportunity for their candidates to respond to our questions. If you can’t see information about a candidate's background, motivations and priorities on their profile, that’s because they have either chosen not to respond to our questions, have not gotten around to it yet, or we haven’t been able to contact them.
Candidates who want to submit a profile are invited to contact candidates@policy.nz.
Yes, Policy is a great resource for schools, especially for social studies classes. There are some resources and activity plans for teachers wanting to use Policy here.
All policy summaries on Policy.nz are prepared by our editorial team without the use of AI, based on a review of publicly available policy documentation. We use AI to proofread candidates' responses to our candidate survey.
Your vote is yours to use how you like. But if you do use Policy.nz to help make your decision on whom to vote for, there are some things you should keep in mind.
Some parties have fewer policies than others on any given issue. This might be because they don’t care about the issue as much, or it might be because they have one great policy that they think will solve multiple issues. Simple arithmetic – which is how Policy.nz generates your personalised graph – won’t address these factors.
Likewise, it won’t take into account how much you care about different issues. Maybe you think climate change is more important than housing. But if you favourite two housing policies from Party A and one climate policy from Party B, the graph will show a greater proportion of Party A policies favourited.
We collect information about users’ favourited policies and candidates in a general way, but we cannot connect it to you personally because we do not know who our users are.
Although you may enter your address on our site to find out which electorate you’re in, we do not ever see, collect or store your address. Instead, we collect and store your meshblock, which is a number identifying the smallest geographical area for which Statistics New Zealand collects information. You can’t be personally identified by your meshblock.
You can read more about this in our privacy policy.
Corrections should be submitted using our corrections form.
Readers should direct any questions or requests for assistance to contact@policy.nz.
Candidates should direct inquiries to candidates@policy.nz.
This tool is a product of Policy.nz. We’re a team from Wellington that makes tools to improve access to election information.
We have published websites like this one ahead of New Zealand’s general and local body elections since 2017. We’re proudly non-partisan and strive to treat all parties and candidates fairly.
Our work is funded through a mix of commercial sponsorship and donations. Our sponsors and donors have no influence on editorial decisions.
This edition of Policy.nz would not be possible without the generous support of Foggy Valley Aotearoa Trust, Mike Frumkin and Christina Falco, and MinterEllisonRuddWatts.
If you’re interested in working with us, please get in touch at contact@policy.nz.
Editorial Director | Shanti Mathias
Candidates Manager | Luka Didham
Editors | Samantha Mythen, Catherine Clouston, Liam Wright, Dan Moskovitz
Associate editor | Maia Ingoe
Illustration | Ezra Whittaker-Powley
Development | Daylight Group
Founders | Asher Emanuel, Chris McIntyre, Ollie Neas, and Racheal Reeves
Special thanks | Lee Lowndes and the team at Daylight, and Addy