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With offshore voter enrollments up 60%, over 100,000 New Zealanders living abroad are poised to influence the November general election, potentially impacting the closely contested results between the major political blocs.
A tight election looms in New Zealand. This time, overseas voters could be bad news for the big parties More than 100,000 have enrolled to vote from abroad in the November poll, and many are unhappy with how things look back homeew Zealander Kris Taute has lived in Australia for 15 years, but his head and heart are turning towards his home country and a loomingFrom across the Tasman Sea, Taute has felt growing frustration at New Zealand’s centre-right coalition government, and analysts believe large numbers of New Zealanders who have left the country since they came to power in 2023 may be poised to vent their grievances at the ballot box in November.
“I see a lot of poverty among families and friends, and inequality … stuff that needs to be addressed,” Taute, who is Māori, tells the Guardian. He says the government’sAkhil Donthireddy moved to Melbourne last year after struggling to secure a job in New Zealand. The 29-year-old says voting enables him to shape a future he wants to see, and he plans to vote for the Green party.
“If the outlook for the future is hopeful, then I would consider moving back”, he says. Polls show the right- and left-leaning coalition blocs will fight one of the tightest elections in years, so votes from New Zealanders abroad like Taute – who plans to vote for Labour or Te Pāti Māori – could help shape the outcome on 7 November. New Zealanders will vote in the general election on 7 November.
Current polls indicate it will be a tightly fought contest. Stats NZ estimates there are about one million New Zealanders living overseas. Offshore voter enrolments are rising – currently 104,164 – up a whopping 60% compared to the same point in the 2023 election cycle, according to the latest electoral commission data. The commission told the Guardian this is the “highest number” of enrolments it has seen in recent elections.
New Zealand’s overseas votes form part of a larger group called “special votes”. Special votes typically favour leftwing minor parties, says Lara Greaves, a political scientist at Victoria University of Wellington. In 2023, special votes resulted in Te Pāti Māori and the Greens gaining three seats between them.
“If I had to guess where the overseas vote would go this election … it will go to the minor parties, because they are all offering alternative visions for New Zealand,” Greaves says, adding “a lot of them” would be left-leaning.1News Verian poll shows support for the two major parties at 28% each, and the Greens surging to their highest ever result of 16%. Other minor parties are polling aboveIf major parties do not get enough votes to form a government, minor parties can become “kingmakers”, with the power to decide who will govern.
, a non-partisan initiative to encourage overseas voting. With the polls so close, Lee believes overseas votes can “legitimately have an impact” and “a fraction of a percentage point can become a decider,” she says.
In a sign of how important that growing overseas voting bloc is, leaders of the prominent political parties will speak to offshore New Zealanders directly in a virtual town hall next month – a first for the country.of its citizens across the Tasman, many escaping a weak labour market, sluggish economy and high living costs. About 74,000 chose to move to Australia since the 2023 election adding to the roughly 600,000 New Zealanders already living there.
Some left because it seemed to be “the only option available to them to find work and experience”, Lee says.
“They’d love to come home and voting is a way to ensure they’re part of making it a place they can come home to. ”.
“There is a possibility that a good chunk of that bigger group that have now moved overseas are quite oppositional or quite opposed to what the government has been doing and do feel a level of spite. ”told the Guardian of their desire to retain their voice in New Zealand’s election – either to help their families, or to shape the country for Onkar Singh has lived in Melbourne for more than 20 years and while he has no plans to return to New Zealand, he wants to keep the option open.
Singh did not wish to disclose who he would vote for but said members of his New Zealand-Punjabi community “were happy with the current government”. Onkar Singh moved to Australia in 2005 with his family for education and job opportunities and is now a dual citizen of both NZ and Australia. Most of those the Guardian spoke with, however, would be voting for change. For Melbourne-based lawyer, Joseph Nunweek, a move back to New Zealand is likely.
Despite living in Australia since 2014, he feels a responsibility to vote for policies that would support his family and community back home, particularly in healthcare, renewable energy and foreign policy.
“Washing your hands of is not really an option,” he says. “We’ve had the right to vote since 1956, but it’s slightly frowned upon: ‘you left, it’s not your business’ is the unwritten rule,” she says. “But … democracy only works if we are all part of it. ”
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