Qiulae Wong standing in front of microphones with a "Beehive" shaped building behind

Opportunity Party leader Qiulae Wong outside parliament on 29 October 2026 in Wellington, New Zealand (Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images)

The power broker in New Zealand’s election has no foreign policy

Opportunity knocks.

Connor Graham

3 November 20264 min read

Like most elections, New Zealand’s will not be decided by foreign policy: domestic concerns, primarily cost of living, unemployment and health, will be at the front of voters’ minds when ballots are cast on Saturday. Yet this election does come at a time when New Zealand is being forced to confront its identity and position within a rapidly changing world order.

Historically, New Zealand has subscribed to what it calls an “independent foreign policy” – a term that gained its modern force from the mid-1980s rupture with the US, when New Zealand’s refusal to allow nuclear-armed or nuclear-powered ships into its waters led Washington to suspend its ANZUS obligations in 1986. It captures New Zealand’s claim to set its own course regardless of pressure from allies, though nowadays the term is a source of contestation, with both sides of parliament claiming to represent it, despite vastly different foreign policy approaches.

The winner of this weekend’s election will shape how New Zealand responds to a world undergoing its sharpest realignment since the Second World War.

But days out from the vote, public opinion polling still shows no party commands anything close to broad support – making it hard to say with confidence which direction the next New Zealand government will steer internationally.

A coalition government will be built from one of two blocs: Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori on the left; National, ACT and New Zealand First on the right. But even these unions may not produce enough vote share to govern, with both blocs consistently polling (Opens in new window) in the mid-40s over recent months.

Most of the remaining votes go to a party that has never cleared the 5% party-vote threshold to enter New Zealand’s parliament: the aptly named “Opportunity”. Opportunity looks likely to break its 10-year drought, positioning itself as power broker and promoting five “bottom lines (Opens in new window)” – non-negotiables that will be insisted upon in any coalition negotiations. Notably, Opportunity does not currently have a publicised platform for New Zealand’s foreign policy.

In September, New Zealand First leader and Foreign Minister Winston Peters argued in a speech (Opens in new window) to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs that genuine independence requires agency in every direction, not merely defiance of the US – rejecting what he cast as a one-directional view among critics who count disagreement with Washington as independence and stay silent on everything else. Days later, Labour’s foreign affairs spokesperson Vanushi Walters offered a different account (Opens in new window): independence, she said, isn’t a matter of flexibility or kept options, but of refusing to separate New Zealand’s interests from its values in the first place.

New Zealand Defence Force patches — Debates are running about the percentage of GDP to spend on defence - or the worth of such targets at all (NZDF)

The same divide runs through how each side frames relationships with the US and China. Walters considers both powers are equally valuable to New Zealand as trading partners and has criticised Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s 2024 description of the country as a potential “force multiplier (Opens in new window)” for Australia and the US as something that doesn’t serve New Zealand’s interests. Peters, by contrast, frames the moment as one demanding realism rather than sentiment, dealing with the world “as it is, not how we wish it would be”.

On defence, New Zealand First has called for the defence budget to reach 3% of GDP (Opens in new window) by the early 2030s, an ambition not shared by its own coalition partners (National favour a 2% of GDP (Opens in new window) commitment), let alone Labour’s Walters, who has rejected (Opens in new window) any percentage commitments. The right bloc has indicated openness to membership and collaboration on AUKUS Pillar II, with Peters calling Pillar II (Opens in new window) a “possibility worth exploring”. Labour, meanwhile, has ruled out (Opens in new window) joining any pillar, and The Greens and Te Pāti Māori oppose the framework outright.

Opportunity leader Qiulae Wong’s most notable foreign policy commitment came when she ruled out being part of a government that has Peters in the position of Foreign Minister, following an outburst from Peters (Opens in new window) aimed at Green MP Lawrence Xu-Nan, which Luxon labelled as “racist” and “offensive”. In response to Wong’s statement (Opens in new window) that Opportunity was considering ruling out working with New Zealand First entirely, Peters replied on X, “we long ago ruled out working with this bunch of pinko communists”. Luxon too has repeatedly, if less flamboyantly, ruled out working with Opportunity.

Wong, however, remains pragmatic, leaving the door open for a last-minute change of heart from Luxon, stating Opportunity will negotiate first with the party that gets the most seats. The sticking point in negotiations will be her party’s five bottom lines – bring prices down, clean up politics, fix the health system, revive ocean health, restore climate credibility – on which Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori arguably sit closer than the right bloc. Continued antagonism from the right towards Opportunity only strengthens that position.

The winner of this weekend’s election will shape how New Zealand responds to a world undergoing its sharpest realignment since the Second World War. The decision may rest with a party that is yet to develop a foreign policy of its own.

About the author

Connor Graham

Connor Graham is a Research Fellow in the Pacific Islands Program at the Lowy Institute.

Topics

New Zealand Elections Government & politics AUKUS Defence & security