This site is for Pasifika.
Why this page exists
Every election the parties talk to everyone, and nobody talks to us.
Nine promises out of 243 even mention Pasifika. We are nine percent of the country, half the age, paid less, renting, with one kid in three going without. And we get handed 243 promises and told to work it out.
This page does the working out. Which promises actually land for Pasifika. Which ones cost us. Whether any of it is going to happen.
Why it’s built this way
Verdict first, because nobody has time to read 243 promises. The receipts sit underneath, because a verdict without receipts is just another opinion.
Judged against our numbers, not the parties’ framing. A tax cut that starts at $48,000 is not a tax cut for a family on $35,000.
Not neutral. Neutral sites exist and they don’t answer our question. This one does, in one person’s voice (The Uncommon Engineer), and shows its working so you can argue back.
How the view was built
1Who we are, on the record
We started with the numbers, not the parties.
From that, twelve things a promise has to move to matter to us:
Rent and housingLow payFamily paymentsJobs and benefit rulesTax at the bottomDoctors and medicinesSchool and trainingKiwiSaverFood and power pricesFaresChurch and languageVisas
2What they promise
243 promises from the seven parties on cost of living, work, education and health, as catalogued by policy.nz, which cites and archives each one. Their words, their links, kept.
3Does it land for us?
Each promise read against the twelve things. Does it name Pasifika? Does it move one of the levers, for us or against us? Is it a Māori policy we might get the benefit of by association? Or does it not touch us at all?
181 of the 243 do.
Judged for the household, not the Treasury: a saving for the Crown that comes out of a Pasifika family is a cost to us, whatever a party calls it.
4Will it actually happen?
A promise is only worth the chance of it happening. So each one gets a verdict:
- Likely in or near power, and dated, costed, or already moving
- Maybe hangs on who governs, or on a coalition partner
- Don’t count on it walked back before, too small to carry it, or an uncosted wish
- Costs Pasifika against us; the note says if they’re in now or would need to get in
Judged on the polls as at 2026-10-13. On those, neither bloc governs without Opportunity, and Luxon has ruled Opportunity out.
5So what
Per party, the verdict in plain words: what a vote for them means for a Pasifika family. Signed. That part is opinion and says so. Everything above it is the evidence.
Who’s in, and why
- ACT — Represented in the 54th New Zealand Parliament. source ↗
- Green — Represented in the 54th New Zealand Parliament. source ↗
- Labour — Represented in the 54th New Zealand Parliament. source ↗
- National — Represented in the 54th New Zealand Parliament. source ↗
- NZ First — Represented in the 54th New Zealand Parliament. source ↗
- Opportunity — Not in Parliament. Included by the author's choice: a registered party contesting the 2026 party vote with a published candidate list and a published economic and tax platform, and the author wants its offering analysed on the same footing as the parliamentary parties. source ↗
- Te Pāti Māori — Represented in the 54th New Zealand Parliament. source ↗