2020 New Zealand general election

The 2020 New Zealand general election was held on Saturday 17 October 2020 to determine the composition of the 53rd New Zealand Parliament. Voters elected 120 members to the House of Representatives, 72 from single-member electorates and 48 from closed party lists. Two referendums, one on the personal use of cannabis and one on euthanasia, were also held on the same day. Official results of the election and referendums were released on 6 November.

The governing Labour Party, led by incumbent Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, won the election in a landslide victory against the National Party, led by Judith Collins. Labour won 65 seats, enough for a majority government. It is the first time that a party has won enough seats to govern alone since the mixed-member proportional representation (MMP) system was introduced in 1996. Labour also achieved the highest percentage of the party vote (50.01%) since MMP was introduced, winning the plurality of party vote in 71 of the 72 electorates (Epsom being the sole exception). This is also the best nationwide result in the popular vote for a main party since 1951, the most seats any party has won since 1990 and the first time Labour has won an absolute majority of the vote since 1946. Ardern subsequently became the most successful New Zealand politician of the MMP era, overtaking John Key by number of seats won under a single premiership. Conversely, this election was the second-worst result for the National Party, which performed more poorly only in the 2002 general election.

With the election being highly centred around the government's praised response to the COVID-19 pandemic, it led to the unprecedented flipping of traditionally National-voting seats to Labour, often with very comfortable margins. Examples included the rural seats of Wairarapa, East Coast, Ōtaki and Rangitata, the latter having never previously voted for Labour. In another blow to National's heartlands, every city except Auckland and Tauranga gave their seats entirely to Labour. In a surprise victory, the left-wing environmentalist Green Party's Chlöe Swarbrick won the Auckland Central seat vacated by National's retiring Nikki Kaye with a margin of 1,068 votes over Labour's Helen White. The right-wing libertarian ACT Party and the Greens both increased their number of seats due to the collapse of National's support base. The Māori Party, representing the cause of indigenous rights, re-entered Parliament with two seats after Rawiri Waititi won the Waiariki electorate. Populist nationalist party New Zealand First, led by Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters in coalition with Labour, suffered its worst-ever result, losing all its seats.

Ardern moved the Labour Party further to the centre during its campaign, promising to cut spending during the remainder of COVID-19 recession and controversially cancelling the government's promise to make the standard three years of tertiary education tuition-free. Doing so alienated some left-wing Labour supporters, giving the Green Party a boost in seat numbers and their victory in Auckland Central. While results of opinion polls early in the year were neck-and-neck between the two major parties, Ardern and the Labour Government were praised for their response to the COVID-19 pandemic in New Zealand. Following the Level 4 lockdown in March 2020, polls began to suggest that Labour could either attain a majority government or could govern with confidence-and-supply from the Greens. In contrast, the leadership of the National Party changed twice in less than three months, unable to improve its poor polling results after collapsing in April 2020. Heading a campaign widely perceived as centrist or centre-leaning, Labour gained support from a large demographic of moderate swing voters, many of whom had previously voted for National under John Key. Approximately 16% of Labour's voters had voted for National in the previous election.

Background

The final results of the 23 September 2017 election gave National 56 seats, while Labour and the Greens combined had 54 seats. New Zealand First won 9 seats and held the balance of power; it was in a position to give either National or Labour the 61 seats needed to form a government. On 19 October 2017, Winston Peters, leader of New Zealand First, announced that he would form a coalition government with Labour. On the same day, James Shaw, leader of the Green Party, announced that his party would give confidence and supply to a Labour–NZ First government. Thus, Labour regained power after nine years in opposition, ending the Fifth National Government which had been in power for three terms (2008–2017). The 2017 election also marked the first time under MMP in New Zealand that a party led a government without commanding the plurality of the party vote.

On 22 May 2020, a leadership election occurred following two poor polling results for the National Party, in which Todd Muller replaced Simon Bridges as leader and Leader of the Opposition, and Nikki Kaye replaced Paula Bennett as deputy leader of the party. Muller himself then resigned on 14 July 2020 citing health reasons, leading to another leadership election later that day, in which Collins was voted into the National leadership position.

Electoral system

New Zealand uses a mixed-member proportional (MMP) voting system to elect the House of Representatives. Each voter gets two votes, one for a political party (the party vote) and one for a local candidate (the electorate vote). Political parties that meet the threshold (5% of the party vote or one electorate seat) receive seats in the House in proportion to the percentage of the party vote they receive. 72 of the 120 seats are filled by the MPs elected from the electorates, with the winner in each electorate determined by the first-past-the-post method (i.e. most votes wins). The remaining 48 seats are filled by candidates from each party's closed party list. If a party wins more electorates than seats it is entitled to under the party vote, an overhang results; in this case, the House will add extra seats to cover the overhang.

A political party or parties with the support of the majority of members in the House form the Government. Prior to this election, from the introduction of MMP in 1996 no single party had won enough votes to win an outright majority of seats; when no party has commanded a majority, parties have had to negotiate with other parties to form a coalition government or a minority government.

Electorate boundaries

Electorate boundaries for the next election are required to be redrawn after each New Zealand census. The most recent census was held in 2018.

By law, the number of South Island general electorates is fixed at 16, with the number of North Island general electorates and Māori electorates increasing or decreasing in proportion to the population. Each electorate must have the same population, with a tolerance of plus or minus five percent. For the 2014 and 2017 elections, there were 48 North Island general electorates and 7 Māori electorates, which, along with the 16 South Island electorates, gives a nationwide total of 71 electorates.

On 23 September 2019, Statistics New Zealand announced that population growth necessitated one additional North Island general electorate, bringing the total number of North Island general electorates to 49 and the overall number of electorates to 72 (reducing the number of list seats available by one). Statistics New Zealand also announced that 11 North Island, three South Island, and two Māori electorates were above 5% tolerance, while five South Island electorates and one Māori electorate were below 5% tolerance.

The Representation Commission undertook a review of electoral boundaries. This review was commenced in October 2019 and was completed in April 2020. The boundaries will apply in the 2020 general election, and the subsequent general election. In total, 36 electorates remained unchanged, 35 electorates were modified, and one new electorate created. The most significant boundary changes occurred in the Auckland, Waikato, central Canterbury, and Otago regions, with smaller changes in the Northland and Tasman regions.

The new electorate was created in South Auckland and named Takanini. Taking area from the Hunua, Manurewa, and Papakura electorates, Takanini is predicted to be a National-tilting to marginal electorate. Takanini's creation cascaded existing electorates north through Auckland and south through Waikato. Significant changes to the north include Manukau East taking Sylvia Park and Panmure from Maungakiekie, with the electorate renamed Panmure-Ōtāhuhu; New Lynn taking the Waitakere Ranges from Helensville; Helensville taking Wellsford, Warkworth and the Kowhai Coast from Rodney and Northland, with the electorate renamed Kaipara ki Mahurangi; and Rodney taking Dairy Flat from Helensville and being renamed Whangaparāoa. To the south, Papakura took the entire Hunua electorate east of State Highway 1, in exchange for Hunua taking the northern part of the Waikato electorate as far south as, and including, Te Kauwhata. Hunua subsequently returned to its pre-2008 name, Port Waikato. Waikato took Te Aroha and the remainder of the Matamata-Piako District area from Coromandel, allowing Coromandel to take Ōmokoroa from Bay of Plenty.