Wellington dissolves Parliament ahead of the 7 November election

New Zealand's Parliament was dissolved on Thursday, 1 October, and the official campaign for the 7 November general election is now open. The House held its last sitting on 23 September. Dissolution, signed by Governor-General Dame Cindy Kiro on the advice of the prime minister, is the formal step that ends the current Parliament.

The country uses a mixed-member proportional system. Voters cast one vote for a local MP and one for a party. Parliament normally has 120 seats. Extra seats can be added if a party wins more electorate seats than its share of the party vote would give it. Coalition governments have been the norm since the system replaced first-past-the-post three decades ago. Minor parties decide who governs.

A 1News-Verian poll released this week put a left-leaning grouping, likely led by Labour, on a path to 65 seats. The incumbent bloc of National, ACT and New Zealand First was on 59. Xinhua, citing the same poll, counted Labour, the Greens, Te Pati Maori and the Opportunity Party on the 65. The decade-old Opportunity Party, a centrist outfit, is the possible hinge. If it clears the 5 percent threshold, or wins an electorate, it can choose the next cabinet.

What dissolution actually does

Only the King of New Zealand, or the governor-general as his representative, can dissolve Parliament. The reserve power to force a dissolution has never been used here. Every ordinary election begins with a proclamation on the prime minister's advice. Writ Day follows on 4 October, when Dame Cindy directs the Electoral Commission to run the 7 November poll.

The ceremony is still read aloud. Phillip O'Shea, Herald of Arms Extraordinary to the King, reads the proclamation. Karanga and waiata were added to the set piece in 2014. MPs cease to be MPs at dissolution. Ministers stay in office as a caretaker government until a new ministry is sworn in. They do not launch new policy. They keep the departments running.

Overseas voting opens on 21 October. Advance voting in New Zealand opens on 26 October. Citizens and permanent residents aged 18 or over can vote if they have lived in the country continuously for 12 months at some point in their lives.

The issues the parties are selling

National and Labour launched their campaigns at separate Auckland events on Sunday. The Ipsos Issues Monitor, the survey both parties watch, lists cost of living, healthcare, the economy, unemployment and housing as the five concerns voters name first. The last sitting, on 23 September, closed with those same subjects on the order paper. Neither side has a spare majority in the current House, which is why the Opportunity Party's number is being read as carefully as the two big parties'.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon's National Party leads the present coalition with ACT and New Zealand First. Labour, under Chris Hipkins, is the largest opposition party. The Greens and Te Pati Maori sit to Labour's left on most spending questions and will want seats at the table if the left bloc wins. The Opportunity Party has not said which major party it would back. Under MMP that silence is a campaign asset. A party that declares early loses the voters who wanted the other outcome.

The seat arithmetic in the Verian poll is not a forecast. New Zealand polls have missed the threshold parties before. A party on 4.9 percent gets no list seats unless it wins an electorate. One electorate win can bring in list MPs who would otherwise have been shut out. That rule, the coat-tail, is why a single local race in a Maori electorate or a city seat can change the national result by more than the headline party vote suggests.

Six weeks, then a count that can take days

The campaign runs six weeks from dissolution to polling day. Special votes, cast overseas or outside a voter's electorate, are counted after election night and have moved a seat or two in recent elections. Coalition talks then start. In 2017 and 2023 the talks ran for weeks. A 65 to 59 split, if it holds, would still leave the winner short of a one-party majority. The next government will be a bargain between at least two parties, and possibly three.

The open question is whether the Opportunity Party finishes above 5 percent. If it does, the 65-seat left count in this week's poll depends on it. If it does not, those seats return to the parties that clear the threshold, and the race tightens again.