Parliament is in the process of dissolving for the 2026 Election, due on 07 November 2026. As the final insults and questions flew in the House of Representatives yesterday, I wrote this. It is my report card for the political parties of the 54th New Zealand Parliament.
Several years ago, Leader David Seymour won widespread applause for his work on a euthanasia bill. It was a time when the party appeared to have a useful purpose as something that the right wing could gather around. One loss to the party is the departure of Brooke van Velden – best known for her anti-safety occupational safety and health rules – it has staged a withering attack on worker rights, pay equity and host of others.
The Party seems to have shorn itself of any regard for mainstream New Zealand. A wide range of Bills of Parliament that became law in the last 3 years. They include the Regulatory Standards Bill. A.C.T helped to enable the destruction of many initiatives aimed at keeping tangata whenua involved in New Zealand society. Their disregard for our international reputation and the damage that their policies are causing is disturbing.
A.C.T. get their grade by being the most effective party in a coalition of chaos. Not because I like them.
GRADE: C+
GREEN PARTY
I see the Green Party doing well at this election. It is not because they have necessarily performed brilliantly in Parliament. Rather because their potential colleagues in Labour have been so awful.
That is not to say though that the Greens have been bad. Out of all of the leftist parties in Parliament, they have definitely been consistently the strongest in the House. They have released a couple of good policies so far in 2026 – their supermarket policy is one. They are the only party in Parliament with a significant tax policy according to the Your Tax website, which monitors the major parties tax policies.
GRADE: B
LABOUR
Despite it now being only 6 weeks until the election, the Labour party is about as awake as it was in 2024. The absence of truly substantive policies and a boring election campaign must make many supporters despair. I ask: How seriously do Labour want to hand National their first ever first term electoral defeat?
Not very. Chris Hipkins and the Prime Minister Christopher Luxon almost seem to be in a race to lose the election. This is backed by months of extremely poor polling, gaffes and an apparent inability of Mr Hipkins to articulate anything original. Nor has Labour removed any of its non-performing M.P.’s or stopped to ask why neoliberalism has failed.
GRADE: D
TE PATI MAORI
O where art thou Maori Party? Ever since its civil war earlier this year, the party has kept an extremely low profile in the media – so low that one could almost wonder if they even exist still.
It is possible that the absence from the media might be just what the proverbial Dr ordered. However Te Pati Maori need to front soon. I have that the Maori Party have been invited to, many have had no candidate, and some have no policy to mention. Surveys have come and gone without them making a response. Thus far, none of their M.P.’s have said anything. It seems to be to me that making peace and then saving oneself from further humiliation is the logical approach.
All this has happened in a year when Maori have been made more and more disenfranchised by Government policies, attitudes and successful scaremongering. Te tangata whenua o Aotearoa need assistance now more than ever, but it is not coming from the one party that claims to speak for all Maori.
GRADE: D
NATIONAL
What to say about National? A radical departure from the centre-right edition of Prime Minister John Key/Bill English. One with callous disregard for everything that made National an acceptable conservative party to many New Zealanders. A leader more out of touch with the needs and desires of New Zealand than any other Member of Parliament in the authors memory.
A party that seems to be as determined to become the first edition of National to last just one term in the Beehive. I only award them the grade I do because I cannot really award them any lower.
GRADE: F
NEW ZEALAND FIRST
2023-2026 is the term of Parliament in which all remaining vestiges of respect New Zealand First ever had, were thrown out. It was the term in which both the Deputy Leader Shane Jones and Leader Winston Peters brought the party into irreparable disrepute, through their abject contempt for the Cabinet Manual.
Mr Peters, once a respected Minister of Foreign Affairs around the world, has gone full Trumpian. His Twitter account often earns him angry retorts along the line of “someone needs to come and get Grandpa”, or “Druncle needs to go home”. Neither are nice comments in the least, and definitely insulting. I have to be honest that I have never seen them get used against other M.P.’s like what happens with Mr Peters. Mr Jones has gone full rogue bulldozer through native forest and Cabinet Manual rules alike.
Casey Costello has followed hard on their heels with her assault on tobacco control. I would note though that she has done some good work around Customs, which in a term of New Zealand First going nuts, is a rare bright spot.
Still, I wonder what the likes of Tracey Martin, once referred to as the sanest person in the Party, thinks of her ex-colleagues now?
GRADE: F
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Report cards are about the past, not the future. As to the past, your comments are reasonable in most respects. I’m personally disappointed in Labour’s efforts so far but I want more emphasis from every party on 200,000 kids in poverty and I want Shane Jones hung in the public square for his continued support for the rape of New Zealand’s seas by his fishery cronies. I trust this is Peter’s last rodeo because he’s past it and Seymour succeeded because he has the second largest party in Parliament. Also, the Atlas Foundation is still allowed to exist unless Nicky Hager covered it in his new book. There are echoes today of John Key’s government where Labour had to spend almost two years cleaning up his mess.