News Briefing Top 10 for 5 November 2026
1. RNZ: Curia polling projects ‘hung Parliament’
The last Taxpayers’ Union-Curia poll of the campaign projects a hung Parliament. National is on 28.9% (35 seats) and Labour on 28.4% (34), with the Greens on 14.4%, Act 10.5%, NZ First down 2.2 points to 9.8% and Opportunity 5.8%, worth seven seats. That’s 60 for the coalition. Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori only reach 60 with Opportunity, which still isn’t enough to govern. RNZ notes the poll doesn’t allow for overhangs, and that Curia has resigned its membership of the Research Association New Zealand.
2. Roy Morgan: National-led Government ahead of Labour-led Parliamentary Opposition (47.5% vs. 44%)
Roy Morgan has Labour ahead of National. In its final pre-election poll National dropped 4.5 points to 26.5% and Labour rose 4 to 27.5%, while Opportunity climbed to 8%, worth 10 seats and the balance of power in a 122-seat Parliament. A majority of 55% say the country is heading in the wrong direction. The gender gap is wide: 62% of men aged 50+ back the coalition, but only 40% of women aged 18-49 do. Fieldwork ran from September 28 to October 25, earlier than the other final polls.
3. Thomas Coughlan (Herald): National turns guns on NZ First as Michael Laws drags party into yet another scandal (paywalled)
Thomas Coughlan, the Herald’s political editor, says the Michael Laws affair raises real questions about whether Winston Peters still controls NZ First. It is the latest in a run of scandals he sees as connected by “a thread of bigotry”, and comes as the party’s support has fallen about 40% from its peak this year. Christopher Luxon took only hours to rule Laws out as a minister. On the campaign trail in Hawke’s Bay he also turned his stump speeches on NZ First’s record, including its support for the offshore oil and gas ban. Coughlan senses that many in National would now rather govern with a tax-free version of Opportunity. But he is cautious about the electoral damage. Some NZ First voters won’t mind the language, and the Greens’ and Te Pāti Māori’s gang pad visit didn’t end up hurting Labour.
4. Anna Fifield: DPMC head promises not to talk shop with National candidate fiancée
Anna Fifield has obtained a summary of the conflict of interest plan for DPMC chief executive Ben King, whose fiancée Jessica Rowe is a National candidate almost certain to win Kaipara ki Mahurangi. King has promised not to discuss information relevant to his role with her. The Public Service Commission refused to release the plan itself. It only runs until Saturday. Rowe has worked as an adviser in Winston Peters’ office and most recently for National ministers Simon Watts and Louise Upston. Even a former National minister told Fifield her candidacy “will raise issues for him”, because a new prime minister might not be comfortable with King taking work home.
5. Jonathan Milne (Newsroom): Disclosing donors behind millions in hidden election spending would help voters judge dodgy decisions
Voters can’t properly judge political influence while the donors behind third-party campaigns stay hidden, Jonathan Milne argues in Newsroom. Party donations are at least disclosed. National has taken more than $13.4 million this three-year cycle, Act more than $6.2 million and NZ First more than $3 million, against Labour’s $5 million-plus. But the 25 registered promoters, among them the Taxpayers’ Union and Reality Check Radio, can each spend up to $424,000 without saying who funds them. Milne asks what big donors want in return. Harry Mowbray told him Reality Check Radio’s Claire Deeks asked him for $300,000, which he refused, and that the wealthy people he approached wanted to be able to give anonymously. He insists his family’s businesses want nothing from the Government: “Absolutely zero.”
6. Janet Wilson (Post): Final days of campaign descend into turmoil as vote-splitting advocates engineer an MMP crisis (paywalled)
Janet Wilson, who has worked in communications, including for National, argues that engineered overhangs threaten confidence in MMP even though they’re legal. Te Pāti Māori started it, with a strategy she calls morally dubious. What sets the right’s version apart is money. Harry Mowbray has spent $17,000 on influencers such as Chantelle Baker, and Reality Check Radio is registered to spend up to $424,000, with backers voters may not learn about until March, if at all. Act and NZ First stand to gain power at National’s expense, she writes in the Post, so even a win could leave National with less authority and credibility. Her fix is to abolish the overhang, as reviews in 2012 and 2023 recommended, and remove the incentive to game the system.
7. Tom Hunt (Post): Still on track: The ‘big four’ gravy train the Government hasn’t derailed (paywalled)
Paul Goldsmith says consultant and contractor spending is down 40%. But spending on the big four firms, Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC, hit a five-year high last financial year, according to OIA figures obtained by the Post’s Tom Hunt. That’s two years after Nicola Willis declared the “gravy train is well and truly over”. MSD paid PwC $53.7 million for its Services for the Future programme alone. The PSA says the same ministries are telling staff there’s no money for a fair pay rise.
8. Tom Pullar-Strecker (Post): Year-long waits for privacy probes as watchdogs face budget squeeze (paywalled)
Complain to the Privacy Commissioner now and you’ll likely wait more than a year just to be assigned an investigator. A PSA report covered by the Post’s Tom Pullar-Strecker finds the office’s funding has fallen 15% in real terms since the 2023 Budget, while complaints have risen 84%. The Human Rights Commission is down 18.5% and the Waitangi Tribunal 11.5%. The IPCA’s frozen budget amounts to a real cut of more than 9%, and it told the PSA it doesn’t have the resources to review police pulling back from mental health callouts. Only the Environment Commissioner, whose budget is set by a cross-party committee, avoided a real cut. The PSA wants the same arrangement for all the watchdogs.
9. The Post: Editorial – The Post’s election endorsement (paywalled)
The Post won’t endorse a single party. Its editorial says all seven main parties are committed to democracy and the rule of law, so it is safe to tick any of them. It would only consider an endorsement in exceptional circumstances, such as a local Putin or Trump emerging. Its sharper criticism is kept for National and Labour, now just “mid-sized” parties. Neither, it says, has credibly grappled with the country’s crises, with productivity underlying them all. It puts their shrinking support partly down to professionalisation and the loss of their mass memberships. The smaller parties, by contrast, have adapted, and the editorial thinks Parliament will be stronger for the wider range of ideas they bring.
10. Ricardo Simich (Herald): Society Insider: Who are the partners of NZ’s political party leaders? (paywalled)
Ricardo Simich profiles the partners helping the party leaders through the campaign. Amanda Luxon keeps an eye on her husband’s health, and promises healthier food for the media outside their Remuera home on election night. Grant Anthony looks after the children while Qiulae Wong travels; he is also chief information officer at Healwell AI, which bought Orion Health. Chris Hipkins and Toni Grace are waiting on the result before choosing a wedding venue, because a return to office would mean extra security. Others keep their heads down. Marama Davidson’s husband Paul has kept a low profile since she became Green co-leader, and Winston Peters and Jan Trotman try not to appear together on the political stage. Rawiri Waititi’s wife, Dr Kiri Tamihere-Waititi, is the exception: she’s Te Pāti Māori’s general manager, and her father, John Tamihere, is party president.
Below the paywall are 57 more summaries and then 75 further links. They cover the four ways election night could go, David Farrar’s paths to power for National and Labour, the National overhang the polls are missing, Opportunity’s board veto, the Greens’ wealth tax and Cabinet clout, Chris Trotter on the Split Your Vote campaign, the Tāmaki debate that left candidates like possums in headlights, Chris Bishop’s Hutt South scramble, whether NZ First has a women problem, whether Luxon can keep Michael Laws out of Cabinet, Harry Mowbray’s plan to replace MMP, the case for a 170-seat Parliament, an 85-year-old turned away from voting, Chris Finlayson wanting the chief electoral officer biffed, unemployment at an 11-year high, the worst labour scarring since the 1990s, Richard Prebble on sacking the Reserve Bank board, a $38 million surprise at the Michael Fowler Centre, the Rich Lister linked to Wellington’s anti-rating campaign, the minister who puts AI’s extinction risk at 2%, the hidden rise in family violence, and the end of The Hui. Plus today’s cartoons.
