NEW ZEALAND; ELECTION; HISTORY; TRENDS

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• The Labour Party's official existence began in 1916, when a number of socialist parties and trade unions came together under the one banner.

• Labour gained popularity surprisingly quickly - winning eight seats in its first election in 1919, and 17 in its second election three years later.

• Of the 29 parliaments since 1935, Labour has governed or led a coalition 13 times.

• Since MMP was introduced in 1996, Labour has led four coalition governments, and governed alone once.

• The National Party as it's known today came about in the 1930s as a result of a merger between the Liberal Party and the Reform Party.  

• The two parties had competed against each other between 1890 and 1935, but by the end of that period the Liberal Party had become fragmented - to the point where the remnants of the party  (under the name United Party) opted to merge with Reform, to form the National Party.

• Of the 29 parliaments since 1935, National has governed or led a coalition 16 times.

• Since MMP was introduced in 1996, National has led four coalition governments.

• ACT stands for 'Association of Consumers and Taxpayers' and was formed in 1993 as a right-wing libertarianism party.

• Its early influence was limited, because of a failure to reach the 5% threshold of the party vote - which guarantees a party a proportion of seats in the parliament.

• ACT's popularity has grown - it's been part of three governments (in a 'confidence and supply' capacity with National) and won 10 seats at the last election in 2020.

• The modern Green Party formed in 1990, and has a policy of co-leadership (previously one male and one female; now one female and one Māori person of any gender)

• As with most green-minded groups, the party is founded on a basis of environmental protection and left-wing economic policies.

• Its strongest years were in the early 2010s, with 14 MPs and over 10% of the party vote.  In the last election, the Green Party had nine MPs - and by co-operating with the Labour Government was also given two ministerial portfolios.

• Te Pāti Māori (the Māori Party) was founded in 2004, and and contests the seven specific Māori electorates.  It won as many as five of those seats in the late 2000s when it supported the National Government.

• It has never broken the 5% threshold for the party vote.

• The Māori Party advocates for indigenous culture, knowledge, and language - as well as the rights of self-determination for Māori people under the Treaty of Waitangi.

• New Zealand First is most commonly associated with its founder and (still) leader Winston Peters - a National MP who resigned in March 1993 and formed the party four months later.

• Peters has twice been New Zealand's Foreign Minister in Labour-led coalitions, and twice the Deputy Prime Minister - once each under Labour and National.

• New Zealand First campaigns on a conservative platform, but with a populist and nationalist agenda.  It has twice broken double-digits in the party vote, but in the most recent election only won 2.6% of the party vote and had no elected MPs.

The above is a now-famous quote from former National leader and then-Prime Minister Jim Bolger after the 1993 election.

It had been expected - and forecast - that National would win the election comfortably.  Instead there was a hung parliament on Election Night, and National only just managed to form the next Government.

Bolger's inference was that, in the end, the opinion polls can count for nothing - and, to coin a phrase, the only poll which counts is the one on Election Day.

Pre-election polls only give us a snapshot of the electorate on any one given day, and by their very nature are backwards-looking.

But over time, they do show us trends.

Here is a party vote "poll of polls" - an aggregation of several opinion polls - starting in January 2021: