Methodology

What this site does

POLATIX NZ presents the published policy positions of New Zealand's major political parties ahead of the 7 November 2026 general election. It is designed to help voters compare positions side by side, in each party's own words.

Policy vintage — when each position was stated

Parties announce and refresh policies on different schedules, so a plank from a 2023 manifesto can sit next to a three-week-old campaign announcement. Every policy bullet therefore carries a small, neutral chip showing when that position was stated:

• Announced Jun 2026 — a dated policy or campaign announcement.
• 2023 manifesto — sourced to a manifesto without a newer announcement.
• Delivered May 2025 — a measure already implemented in government.
• 2026 platform — a standing position the party is carrying into the 2026 campaign, with no single dated announcement.
• Date unverified — used only where even this can't be established; we show it honestly rather than guess a date.

Dates come only from the bullet's cited source or an audit-verified anchor — never inferred from the policy's content. Chips use identical, neutral styling for every party (no colour-coding by age, which would itself editorialise). Where more than half of a party's shown positions are from a previous election's manifesto, its column carries a note saying so. A weekly top-up pass re-checks these dates for parties with active announcement streams.

Our neutrality contract

This project is governed by strict neutrality principles. These are not aspirations; they are rules we follow in every design and editorial decision:

• Own words first. Every policy position displayed is an excerpt in the party's own words, never a paraphrase presented as fact.
• Provenance on everything. Every policy carries a source URL and the date it was retrieved. No source link means we don't display it.
• One taxonomy, applied equally. We use a fixed set of 12 policy areas and map every party into the same categories.
• No fabrication. If a party has no published position on a topic, we display "No stated policy" with honesty.
• Equal treatment. Parties are listed in alphabetical order. No party receives visual prominence or preferential ordering.
• No editorialising. This site contains no adjectives, ratings, scores, or fact-checks. We present; we do not judge.

How data is collected

Policy positions are collected from each party's official website using an automated scraper. For each party, we have a dedicated adapter that understands that site's structure.

• We scrape official policy pages and, where available, published manifesto documents.
• Each site's robots.txt is respected. If a path is disallowed, we skip it.
• We rate-limit requests (minimum 2 seconds between requests) and identify ourselves with a descriptive User-Agent.
• Content is normalised against our fixed taxonomy, then stored with a content hash for change detection.
• Re-scrapes detect changed content and preserve previous versions, creating an audit trail.

Parties included

We cover seven parties: ACT New Zealand, Green Party of Aotearoa NZ, New Zealand First, New Zealand Labour Party, New Zealand National Party, Te Pati Maori, and The Opportunity Party. TOP is currently outside Parliament; the site does not imply parliamentary status.

Independence and funding

This project is independent and not affiliated with, funded by, or endorsed by any political party, government agency, or media organisation.