New Zealand voted in a new government as fog choked the capital, Wellington, on Saturday – and the mood was as palpable as the grey weather. “It’s pretty flat,” 21-year-old Imogen Vlutger says. “There’s this kind of apathy and a bit of dread.” “Tired. I think we’re all tired,” Symone, 28, admits.
“I didn’t even vote,” one man in his 40s sheepishly confesses. He couldn’t bring himself to tick any of the boxes, he explains, declining to chat further. “Wellington’s a bit of a bubble,” another voter says, expressing a caveat I heard often, before describing feeling disillusioned. But polling shows this is a pervasive sentiment across the country: the national mood is low and faith in politics is even lower.
More than half the country no longer sees it as a land of opportunity, a recent study found, while a similar portion fears that the future looks even worse. Many Kiwis feel the economy is in ruins, there are no jobs, the cost of living has become sky high, the sense of community that used to be a source of national pride is breaking down and there’s no sense of genuine progress on policy solutions. A record number of them are abandoning ship in search of brighter futures elsewhere. Saturday’s election also saw a record number of voters desert the two major parties, giving neither a clear mandate.
But it brought new highs for parties across the spectrum: the left-leaning Greens, the right-wing libertarian Act Party and the centrist Opportunity Party – the latter of which had never won a seat in parliament before but could now hold the balance of power with seven. “You have voted to change New Zealand politics for good,” the party’s ecstatic leader Quilae Wong told Kiwis on election night. “I personally came into this because I was frustrated at the slow pace of change.” It will likely be weeks before we know exactly who will make up the governing coalition and what deals have been made to form it. But this is only the first of many challenges facing whoever is the next prime minister of a country at a crossroads.
New Zealand hasn’t always felt like this. For a long time, the country was viewed as a land of milk and honey – literally – for those who worked hard, with its people ranking amongst the most positive in the world. A satisfying career, access to quality healthcare, and a close network of family and friends – which research suggests are the three most important building blocks of a happy life – were all there for the taking, University of Auckland Prof Robert MacCulloch says. “The lifestyle was good,” the world-leader in the study of happiness economics tells the BBC.
“You weren’t the highest paid, but you could get by nicely.” Many who spoke to the BBC said the country’s decline accelerated into a dive during the Covid pandemic. Unemployment is now at an 11-year high and rising. For Kiwis aged under 24, things haven’t been this bad in three decades: jobs are so scarce that one in three either cannot get enough work or have none at all. Michael Dawson says he did everything he thought he was supposed to: finished school, studied a trade and obtained a qualification, and has applied for dozens of jobs.
But it’s been a year now and the job market is so dire he hasn’t had a single interview. “It has sucked. A lot… I’m somewhat cynical with the way I think [about the future] now,” the 20-year-old says.
Zainab Ali, chief executive of support service Youth Inspire, has never seen demand so high, with waitlists for its employment aid workshops stretching into the hundreds. The young people who do make it through their doors on the outskirts of Wellington are disheartened. “The things we used to hear from everyone’s grumpy uncle around the Christmas table sometimes, our young people are now starting to give us that same feedback: like, ‘What’s the point?'” Meanwhile, household electricity bills have jumped drastically, partly driven by global supply shocks. New Zealand remains one of the least affordable places on Earth to rent or buy a home.
High inflation means every dollar is having to stretch further. The island nation produces enough food to feed its population eight times over, but about a quarter of adults are skipping meals because the price of groceries – set by a supermarket duopoly – is among the highest in the developed world. And the headlines are full of healthcare crises: long waiting lists, chronic understaffing, crumbling health infrastructure and climbing costs for patients. Few stories have captured the state of the system like the death of a man who collapsed in an emergency department toilet after a nine-hour wait in July.
“There’s a segment of the population that are facing real material hardship… and then there’s another segment of New Zealanders that are quite anxious that they could be next,” political scientist Luke Oldfield, from Victoria University of Wellington, says. Increasingly polarised public debate – around topics like Māori rights and the Treaty of Waitangi, healthcare for LGBT+ people and immigration – have added to the mental load for many in those communities. “There’s been a few groups feeling like they’re being used as a political football,” Dr Lara Greaves, who studies Indigenous politics, says. This perfect storm is driving about 180 people to leave the country every day – a record-breaking exodus that is dividing families, shrinking communities and draining talent pools.
Siblings Sam and Emily tell the BBC that they love New Zealand but find it hard to keep finding reasons to stay. Their friends are leaving en masse and even their parents have considered moving to Australia. “It’s not just that you’re being rewarded for going to Australia, it’s that you’re kind of actively being punished for staying here,” Sam says. There are still large parts of the country that feel differently, though.
At the nation’s largest livestock saleyard in the town of Fielding, where farmers from all over the island have gathered, Stu Morton says the last year was the best he’s had in his 30-year career. The agriculture industry – which makes up about 3% of New Zealand’s GDP – was struggling under the previous Labour government’s emissions reductions scheme, he adds, but has turned a corner under the National Party. He believes the rest of the economy will follow suit. “We’ve been through those times where you’re questioning ‘Where’s the future?’ “What helps is having a stable government… [and] it comes down to a positive attitude – appreciating that what you’ve got is actually okay.” Many of these issues affecting New Zealand are global trends – and it’s undeniable that Kiwis’ standard of living is better than many others.
But these issues are having a corrosive impact on its national identity. “It leads to a crisis of confidence about what New Zealand is and where it’s going,” Helen Clark, who was prime minister from 1999 to 2008, tells the BBC. Her foundation surveys New Zealanders every year about social cohesion, and its most recent report found Kiwis – in particular young poeple – feel far more isolated than they did a generation ago, attitudes towards multiculturalism are souring and the population is becoming less hopeful. Faith in institutions and leaders has taken an alarming turn: only two out of five New Zealanders trust the government to do the right thing, while less than half of the country trusts the courts.
“There’s a feeling that, really, there’s no-one who cares,” Clark says. The transformation former Labour prime minister Jacinda Ardern promised on issues like healthcare and housing when she was elected in 2017 never eventuated. Many other achievements – for example world leading smoking reforms, emissions reduction policies or Maori language initiatives – have been wound back by her successors. Her legacy is dominated by polarising Covid decisions, as is Chris Hipkins’, who was health minister before his eight months in the top job after Ardern’s resignation.
The National Party came to power in 2023 promising to “get our country back on track” and rebuild the economy. “You’d have to say they’ve had very limited success,” political commentator Grant Duncan says. “And the Luxon government can only blame the previous government for so long.” National delivered the education overhaul it pledged, but the biggest moment of their tenure was the massive hikoi – protest march – led by Māori over their coalition partner’s unpopular bill to redefine the Treaty of Waitangi. And then came the two leadership challenges Christopher Luxon fought off in the past six months.
There’s a sense Labour had too much ambition, much of it costly and unfulfilled, while National doesn’t have enough, having spent much of its time and effort wrangling their own flank. Both governments say their plans for the country were stymied by crises out of their control – such as Covid, the Iran war and US trade antagonism. But Duncan says that’s not cutting it with voters. He’s never seen the country quite like this before: “Neither of the parties has been able to field a really strong, inspiring leader.
Both of them have a track record of disappointing results.” No matter who ends up taking the top job, Sam says he’s not convinced much will change. “It does just feel stale… a lot of the population probably feels like we could do a bit better,” he says. With a wry smile, he adds: “I don’t think it helps that they’re two white guys named Chris.”
