Opportunity should consider starting a bit smaller
Wednesday, 20 May 2026
Henry Cooke is deputy political editor at The Post, and writes a column every Wednesday.
OPINION: There are a few contradictions at the heart of “Opportunity” - the party formally known as TOP.
The first is between its positioning and its policies.
Opportunity sells itself as a party of sensible centrists able to work with either side of politics, unlike the Greens.
But its core policy at every election it has fought has been a tax policy far to the left of not just Labour, but the Greens too. This year is no different, with a “tax reset” that includes a 1.75% annual land value tax - on all residential and commercial land, including the “family home” - alongside a suite of income tax cuts and hikes and a universal basic income (UBI) that would replace superannuation and other benefits.
The party is open about the fact that this would dramatically lower house prices and force new decisions on asset-rich retirees and farmers. And while UBI-style plans often win over some on the right by at least removing the need for complex benefit systems, the party is also promising a complex range of top-ups for retirees and other beneficiaries to make sure they are no worse off.
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There is nothing wrong with being audacious and bringing new ideas into the policy debate, but within the political reality of New Zealand it is hard to see any reconciliation between a party pushing this policy and one like National that sees the taxation of capital income - let alone capital wealth - as Marxism-lite.
The second contradiction is with its electoral strategy.
Opportunity is pretty clearly targeted at professional voters who read a lot about politics and like to think about policy. One of the main policies on the Opportunity website is citizens’ assemblies, a popular idea among democratic theoreticians and columnists, but about as far away from retail politics as you can get.
There is nothing wrong with being a wonk party, and there could well be more than 5% of the voting public who are deeply interested in this kind of stuff. But those exact voters are by their nature the most informed and the most knowledgeable about the electoral system. That will also make them the most conscious of the fact that with their polling hovering between 2% and 3% there is a very good chance that their vote is wasted, and wasted in a way that guarantees the current coalition returns.
This “will my vote be wasted” problem is common for all sub-5% parties, but the backers of fringe groups like the NZ Outdoors & Freedoms Party are far enough away from mainstream politics that even a technically “wasted” vote might seem worth it as a protest for them. It’s hard to see the Opportunity voter walking into the booth with the party at 3% or so happy to cast his or her vote as a protest.
The usual way to get over the 5% problem is to grab an MP with a seat already. This is how NZ First, the Greens, and Te Pāti Māori made it into Parliament in the first place. Opportunity does have a former MP in its ranks, Labour’s Iain Lees-Galloway, but he has insisted he won’t be running for a seat this time - indeed, the party has made clear that it is going for 5%, not an electorate entry.
The only party to get over 5% from a total standing start was ACT in 1996, in the first-ever MMP election, with several former MP heavyweights in its caucus. It is hard to see that opportunity being offered to Opportunity.
But MMP is young, and historic patterns needn’t stop Opportunity making it to Parliament without a breakway MP, or at least getting itself a bit stronger ahead of luring away a Green or Labour MP unhappy with a poor place on the list.
The best way to do this would be in local body elections.
Opportunity has tried this before - running candidates in the 2022 local body elections and even winning a single seat in the Wairarapa. But the party did not run anyone in 2025.
Councils would let the party build support, experience, and a talent pipeline. Upstart parties such as Reform and the Greens in the UK have had great success winning swathes of councillors, showing their supporters they are more than just a protest vote and providing serious momentum between national elections. Opportunity, on the other hand, seems to go into complete abeyance between general elections, meaning the nascent party machinery has to be created all over again for each election.
Local body elections are also low turnout, provide serious surprises, and through differing electoral systems can make it far harder to “waste” a vote. It is not hard at all to imagine Opportunity picking up a handful of council seats in some major centres, and even managing a majority or a mayor in an upset. Whoever pulled this off would have a far stronger platform to make it into Parliament should they wish to do so.
It would be long and slow and might not involve the party upending our tax system in one fell swoop. But building political power is always hard. It took Labour 19 years of hard scrabble to form its first government after the party formed in 1916. If Opportunity is serious about changing the country, it could find just as difficult.
Good ideas on their own have never won an election. It takes a lot of hard work too.