I haven't been able to write as much this year because of serious neck problems. I’ve long been planning a comprehensive and excessively wordy “Why I am voting for The Opportunity Party” article, but I haven't been up for it, and time has run out.
Another Substack writer, Chuan-Zheng Lee, has recently written an incredibly detailed article on why he is voting Opportunity. It’s very much like something I would have written, with heaps of links to supporting details, true to Opportunity's evidence-based principles.
But I’d like to contribute something small nonetheless.
If I were to sum up the New Zealand 2026 election in two words, they would be Fear and Opportunity. Fear because it’s the dominant emotion, and Opportunity because a new political party is likely to enter Parliament for the first time.
The two largest political parties have run campaigns almost exclusively stoking fear that a disaster awaits should the other party end up in power. This negativity is echoed by voters who often speak in terms of which “side” they don’t want in power, rather than which party matches their aspirations for the future. Although we have six parties in parliament and all of them (except ACT) have partnered with both major parties in the past two decades, currently they have coalesced into two factions and have ruled out working with any parties on the other side in future governments.
This type of polarisation has always been present in the United States (where I’m from originally), but it keeps getting worse and seems to be accelerating. People there now literally pack up and move house to live near people who belong to the same political party. Families and friendships are torn apart. Political violence is becoming an unexceptional news story.
The situation is nowhere near that bad here in New Zealand, but it’s still painful for me to see anything that reminds me of the path the United States has been on in my lifetime. And it’s happening all across the world to varying degrees.
I truly believe that Opportunity is a path out of this left-right trap that we are in. When opposing sides have strong opinions and can’t agree, sometimes you call in a mediator, and I believe Opportunity can fill that role.
If your reaction to this sort of appeal is “a vote for Opportunity is a vote for Labour/National”, then I doubt I can convince you. But for anyone who hasn’t yet voted, if you’re not firmly in either camp, please consider giving your party vote to Opportunity.
I did.
I’m not afraid of either a Labour or National government as long as Opportunity is there.
