Can the NZ Left win the 2026 Election? Should it win?
With the rise of NZ First making a Labour/Green/MP Government less likely (thanks to Eru, Doc, Mariameno and alienating woke identity politics inside the Greens), the question this election year, can the NZ Left win, and should it?
Labour
They are incremental and frightened to do anything meaningful when it comes to actually regulating Capitalism in NZ. After failing to build 100 000 State Homes and Affordable Houses alongside blowing $52 million for a bike lane across the Harbour Bridge that never happened, there is a fear to actually try. Oh and child poverty barely moved last time they were in power. NZ Labour have lost their mojo and aren’t sure what they stand for any longer.
The Good News is that there is a realisation within Labour that they need to do more than tinker and actually have to produce policy that lowers the cost of living for people. They are also decent people who simply wouldn’t be causing the type of economic vandalism and societal carnage National, ACT and NZF have embarked upon.
Greens
They have been inoculated from any real polling drop during their internal fights with the identity politics cliques that backed Darleen Tana, but with the large number of young people who have fled to Australia alongside the negativity algorithms that put people off politics alongside their alienating woke activists driving men away from the Left, they have seen body blow after body blow to their polling that now risks them losing their 3rd party status. If NZF over take them, Chloe, Marama and the whole woke circus will be first to bend the knee and suck Winston’s boot. If the choice is between another ACT/NATIONAL/NZF Government or a Labour/NZF/Green Government, Chloe and Marama have no choice but to kiss Winston’s shoes.
The Good News is that the Greens themselves have realised how alienating their woke extremism has become because they’ve had to deal with it directly inside the Party. Woke on Woke Friendly Fire is the worst type of safe space micro aggression policing you can ever be forced to tolerate and a big swig of their own vegan medicine has grown hairs on all their collective chests. The focus is economic justice before social justice and if they pick up Mamdani cost of living policies, like free public transport and free ECE, they can storm Auckland ahead of Labour. They also recognise the need for a united front with the Māori Party in any post election negotiations with Labour which will force Labour away from being incremental.
Te Pati Māori Party
Jesus wept. What more can be said? Punters will blame the Māori Party leadership for the fall out after Eru, Doc and Mariameno, but the leadership deserved loyalty, not plotting and the meltdown has robbed Left wing voters of a Labour/Green/MP Government. Lots of people have a right to be pissed off.
The Good News is that the Māori Party have the most progressive economic policy and in a united negotiating front with the Greens could lock NZF out while pushing a far more progressive platform onto Labour. There is still a scenario where the Māori Party hold onto 4 Māori electorates and with a low Party vote generates an MMP Overhang.
In 2026, the economy will continue to falter thanks to the neoliberal economic vandalism of this hard Right Government and society will become more polarised thanks to social media hate algorithms.
The damage being caused to the capacity of the State to solve the economic inequalities, necessary environmental adaptation and public service provision is masked by culture war revenge fantasies masquerading as social policy.
We need real Left solutions like Mamdani is championing, not the incremental mediocrity that Keir Starmer manufactures.
The naked reality is that Labour, Greens and Māori Party on their worst days are still better than National, NZF and ACT on their best days.
So what are the best, worst and most likely outcomes this year for the NZ Left in the 2026 Election?
The best outcome for the Political Left in 2026:
Māori Party holds 4 seats and has a low party vote that trigger’s an overhang, the Greens reach out to Australia special votes and brings in the non vote while Labour holds the middle which = 51%. The Greens and MP form a united negotiating front and forces Labour to adopt a genuinely progressive Mamdani platform.
The reality is that the Greens are what one would technically term as, ‘weak arsed pussies’. Maybe it’s the veganism and lack of iron, but the Greens have all the offensive capacity of slow growing moss. Their ability to be bullied by Labour into meaningless incremental nothings is well recorded and the reality is that they NEED an arsehole like John Tamihere in a united negotiating front to ensure they don’t get played by Labour again.
The worst outcome for the Political Left in 2026
NZF + National + ACT are re-elected and cement into place their 19th Century White Settler privilege and continue to strangle the common good for their donors interests.
Massive State Sale Programme begins that permanently mutilates the State.
It’s all the worst bits of the four Horseman of the Apocalypse, but with more cows, property speculation and beneficiary bashing.
The most likely outcome for the Political Left in 2026
If the Greens lose their 3rd place Party ranking to NZFirst, Winston calls the shots and will form a Government with Labour, making the Greens slaves while becoming a handbrake on any public good.
If Te Pati Māori can not sort their shit out (thanks to Doc, thank to Mariameno and thanks to Eru), if they continue to blame Tamihere for protecting the leadership and splinter like flakes, Winston will simply tell the electorate he is the only one who can protect NZ from Te Pati Māori instability and they will force the Greens to accept a deal where they are once again the abused partner in a Government arrangement where they have zero influence.
Yeah well ; It just means we have to work harder to get people to vote left. And be better than that fool Brian Tamaki who thinks his king hit is telling people to “withhold their vote”.
Everyone knows that the left has lost the rightwing conservative economic and defence factions within the left because what’s leftover are those who the left has to recruit from.
It is my fear that once the boomers GenX and maybe even millennials are gone. There will be war.
There is an increasing leadership void. Even chippies lefty crew doesn’t know where anything is, they don’t know what anything does. Chippy himself is good at “prescribing” what might be good later on in the future but he’s terrible at “describing” what is right now.
And when diplomacy fails. War is inevitable.
The only winners are neo liberal policies, corrupt MP’s and the rigged system , big paying corporate donors and New Zealanders ineptitude and indifference. And the lack of any real alternative on offer.
I’ve worked out each party’s real slogan for the coming election. There’s something to enrage everyone.
NATIONAL PARTY- Rising house prices and rents – forever!
ACT- Leave us alone, and go take care of yourself.
NZFIRST- NZ the way we want it, so it’s back to 1978.
GREEN PARTY- End heteronormativity in Gaza, NOW!
LABOUR PARTY- Co-governance, more public servants, and putting men back into women’s sport.
TPM- Send Whitey back.
It would be interesting to know if NZF would entertain a coalition with Lab/Green.
Of course, party members are currently in hiding after the scary meteor (https://www.1news.co.nz/2026/01/31/spectacular-fireball-streaks-across-wellington-night-sky/) so we won’t know for a few days until they re-emerge from their caves.
It’s not can they win, they MUST win or NZ will go down the gurgler – almost there now! Continuing with this CoC is way worse as the affluent take over our country and continue to rip off our workers, our homeless, our jobless etc. I truly can’t comprehend why normally intelligent folk can’t grasp this fact. Is it simply Naivety, Stupidity or GREED? So Labour/Greens you have to get together and bring in policies that actually show a different, meaningful [Savage-like], intelligent approach to getting NZ out of the huge ugly mess this CoC has inflicted on us. Start with increasing the ridiculously low taxes that so many top feeders are gorging on – they are not your voters! Greens, firstly yes, ensure you get the Left vote from Aus – give them all the help you can to ensure they vote. Also, remove that damn word WOKE from all your literature – it is poison, and focus on saving NZ for all New Zealanders. We don’t want masses of wealthy people moving here part-time, owning our best real estate while keeping their money elsewhere, and using us as a climate bolt hole! FGS Left show initiative, be instrumental in real change not weak, pathetic “sticky plasters”. This CoC lie through their teeth so be adventurous and forward thinking and hold them accountable. Just GET ON WITH IT!
“be adventurous and forward thinking” , the left? You have to be joking Patrize surely haha.
Oh well, all things considered and from a more right point of view, 2026 is unfolding quite nicely so far.
Can you please elaborate on how ‘the right’ are more “adventurous and forward thinking” and i’ll pass it on to ‘The Comedy Club’….unless by “adventurous” you mean driving the the economy straight off a cliff and sinking a ferry deal that was the deal of the century and incurring a $650 million dollar cancellation fee…..very adventurous!
…And i guess “forwarding thinking” by ‘the right’ can be couched in terms of providing the cancer stick companies … like the ones that Bishop used to work for….with big tax breaks, which, in the future, will help them kill people faster so the government then won’t have to pay them Superannuation…thus saving the taxpayer money.
Yep, they have a monopoly on all the bright ideas…
How much is the right paying you to denigrate the left parties .Anyone that is trying to decide who they vote for at the next election will not bother reading the manifestos of the left parties after reading the daily attacks you wage on them .
Martin is a realistic thinker and while I do not agree with his thinking he makes good points about the shortcoming of Labour . There are aspects of National that I find hard to agree with but I do not have the power he has so all I can do is go to meetings and express them there Unfortunately the majority do not want to hear bad news that makes them think. That is why you are most of the left leaning bloggers do not always like what is written . The biggest problem in this age is that Google can be managed to give you what you want to hear rather than the truth.
You clearly don’t want to hear the bad news that this is the worst government for over 40 years. Blaming the left bloggers and believing you know how others think is a joke. You don’t like what left leaning bloggers scribe because the truth hurts.
The left parties manage to reduce their credibility without Martyn having any involvement. I used to be more tribal with my politics but have decided that although the right are worse there is no point in looking for long term solutions from any politicians. I can’t find a party that agrees with all my views so I pick the best of what is available that has a realistic chance of getting into parliament even if they are unlikely to be in government.
To answer your question, yes it should. Why because the only way to rectify the mess and carnage this coalition has created is to vote them out. If you want our once gold star public health system back, vote Labour…
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/video/herald-now/major-hospital-disruptions-health-nz-investigating-major-it-outage/DK5O3UQWUTQ5KGDURHPA7GDVXY/
National have gutted the public health system (alongside everything else) and we are far the worse for it.
Labour must regularly remind the electorate that the CoC did not inherit the economic mess we are in rather they the CoC created it with fuckwit policies
Agree Clive. And they don’t need to bother about the incongruity of that, noone remembers it was Labour that ushered it all in back when… Now they need to make another convulsive start; come back Roger and show them how to do it. Politics has settled into a trophy game between two sides, the winner being better at swerving as the Going brothers, and they were Maori. So the Real People need to start practising their moves – as the Going brothers did (Ngapuhi and Ngati Hine) in the Far North. (In Malcolm Gladwell’s book ‘Outsider the Story of Success’ he refers to an observed and discussed background to many famous,successful people – the 10,000 hour Rule. They have assiduously practised their chosen skill and gift for about that much time, until they were Masters or Mistresses of it. So you remaining lefties get to it you blighters, don’t aim for the easy ride of a rocking-horse, that’s not the option of true lefties with beliefs in an ethical world; it’s just middle-class graduates of life or academica, choosing a professional career for themselves.
Good heavens.
The landslide is imminent, for the Right that is.
Agree and they better move their tents to safer grounds
If the country had been doing so well why was Labour voted out .After 6 years they had nothing to brag about and little to offer apart from GST off fruit and veg .
Except that the country didn’t go backwards as it clearly has now thanks to the National CoC.
After just over two years, National gave tax cuts( wow that’s an original bribe!) and landlord rebate bribes that helped the whole country, not.
Meanwhile they cut funding to …
Health
Education
Fire brigade
Police
Pay Equity
Beneficiaries
Whilst increasing …
Inflation
Electricity
Rates(councils forced to do this)
Food
Petrol
Car Rego’s
GP visits
Just to name a few.
And the best you can come up with to attack Labour is GST off fruit.
You are a fucking idiot Trevor.
Such breathtaking ignorance.. .
So if Labour had nothing to brag about…like saving 20,000 lives and staving off the ruination of many families and businesses during a 1 in 100 year worldwide pandemic ..
….then what are National and the CoC’s bragging rights?. oh wait !…let me guess. ….creating the worst stats on every metric since 1992…
Yep…. that’s worth bragging about!
Totally agree Clive… just look at what these idiots have done in less than 2 years ,,,,and they have managed to do this without having to deal with a 1 in 100 year worldwide pandemic and 7 significant in 50 year weather events…
Even then, Labour maintained a 3.4 % unemployment rate …now 5.6% under the COC…6% actually if it wasn’t for the Australia factor …debt is higher and tax take is lower. … with critical cancelled infrastructure projects now costing significantly more..
Labour were back to surplus by mid to late 2027 as verified by Treasury…now… the COC have made such a hash of it, we aren’t anywhere near surplus until at least 2030/1.
Labour have so much fuel to burn this ridiculous bunch of out of their depth ,egomaniac, hubristic, no hoper, narcissists.