It’s election year and New Zealand’s politics are getting more toxic and divisive than ever, so here’s a quick guide for people who are or want to support the queer community.

Unfortunately this year it will be important to compromise to ensure NZ First are removed from power.

Who can vote?

New Zealand allows a lot more people to vote than many countries - it’s not restricted to citizens! Anyone with a permanent residence visa who’s been in New Zealand for 12 months uninterrupted at any time in their life can vote, this includes Australian citizens living here!

Overseas voting depends on whether you’re a citizen or eligible non-citizen voter, but both can if you’ve been in NZ recently enough, check the detailed voting criteria on the Electoral Commission’s website.

You don’t need ID, a voting card, or any documentation to vote, you just need to provide your legal name and enrolled address.

Enrolling

The 2026 general election is on Saturday 7th November. Everyone 18 or older on that day is eligible to vote, but you must be enrolled by 25 October 2026!

If you are 17 you can enrol in advance, head to vote.nz to enrol now and you’ll be automatically enrolled on your birthday. If your birthday is after the 25th October you have to enrol in advance, but it’s a good idea to get it out of the way now.

You should also check your details to ensure you’re enrolled in the correct electorate, this will make sure your details are at the right polling place. Don’t worry if you forget though - you can make a special vote.

Who has the best rights record?

I’m only going to report on records of support for LGBTQIA+ rights here, other criteria are going to depend on your personal views.

Supportive parties

The Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand and Te Pāti Māori have consistently supported the queer community and supported legislation to protect their rights. Both of these parties are typically classed as socialist and fiscally liberal, typically called left wing.

The NZ Labour Party (“neoliberal red”) have historically been supportive but are more centrist party and will drop policies to appease perceived swing voters. They have consistently opposed legislation to weaken existing laws that protect LGBTQIA+ people so are not a bad choice. Labour are historically a trade union backed socialist party but are now neoliberal centrist.

Indifferent parties

The New Zealand National Party (“neoliberal blue”) have been in general indifferent towards the rainbow community. They’ll choose whichever direction they think will score the most political points or keep them in power by appeasing a coalition partner. Historically National has been a more socially and fiscally conservative party, but like Labour in they moved to neoliberal centrist in the 1990s, however recently they have swung towards fundamental Christian polices which should give people pause for thought.

ACT New Zealand are libertarian, and as such they typically promote personal freedoms at the expense of everyone else. Typically they reject laws to restrict rights on this basis alone, but they have also been known to compromise on this so they can push tax and benefit cuts.

Hostile parties

New Zealand First is a populist conservative party. They want to roll back all the rights gained since the Homosexual Law Reform Act 1986, including freedom of marriage. As with most populist parties they focus on making things “as they used to be” including all the harms that used to exist based on a rose-tinted view of the past.

Other parties

There are plenty of other parties, but since they fail to meet the thresholds I’m not writing about them. TOP aren’t the worst though.

Party and electorate vote strategy

New Zealand has an electoral system where you get to choose both a person and a party. The person is your local representative, the party vote is used to balance parliament so it better reflects the overall vote. Your party vote can be for a different party to the person you select, or for the same party, it’s up to you.

Since we don’t have preference voting you need to vote strategically.

I’m only going to cover the general roll here. I’m not Māori so cannot provide any advice for Māori electorates.

Electorate vote

The electorate vote - the person - is a simple majority. If there are three candidates and the top ranked candidate has 35% of the vote then they win, so it’s important to vote strategically here.

Vote Labour

Unless you’re in an electorate with a strong Green vote (Auckland Central for example) then vote Labour. Due to the nature of first-past-the-post voting electorate votes this is best thought of as a two-way vote between Labour and National, except in some specific electorates. If you know someone who plans to vote Green in a non-Green electorate then tell them to vote Labour!

Also if you’re enrolled in Epsom vote for the National candidate no matter what. The Epsom vote is split between National and ACT, unseating ACT is more important than principles here.

Party Vote

You get a lot more freedom with your party vote, but I would encourage voting for one of the supportive parties listed above. The proportions are calculated from parties who get either an electorate seat or more than 5% of the vote, so voting for a party that gets under 5% of the vote distorts this.

This election I would recommend against voting for TOP instead of Labour or Green as we need as many votes there as possible, unless someone’s making a choice between TOP and National/ACT/NZ First then encourage them to vote TOP!

Recommendations?

I’m not going to tell anyone how to vote, that’s between you and the ballot paper.

The most queer supportive vote on the general roll is for the Labour candidate and Green/Ti Pāti Māori for the party vote.

A vote for any party other than New Zealand First is an improvement. NZ First brings chaos.