Who Will Be Prime Minister? These Numbers Decide Who Wins (NZ Election 2026)

The morning after the election, the numbers point to the current coalition hanging on ... but 400,000 special votes are still to be counted. So what does it actually mean for property investors, and which policies are likely to survive the coalition talks? In this episode, Ed and Andrew give their unfiltered, morning-after take on the result. You’ll learn: Our initial raw reaction to the election resultWhat it means for property investorsThe policies most likely to come in once a coalition is formedThe takeaway? Based on these provisional numbers, most of the controversial property policies are unlikely to make it. For once, investors may be in for three years of status quo. ⁠Let us know your thoughts by leaving us a voice message on the Property Academy Hotline⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.speakpipe.com/PropertyAcademy For more from Opes Partners: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.opespartners.co.nz/newsletter-sign-up⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Stay ahead of the NZ property market⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.opespartners.co.nz/private-property-sign-up?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=promo&utm_campaign=pp_signup ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.instagram.com/opes_partners/ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.tiktok.com/@opespartners Disclosure: Opes Partners is responsible for any financial advice provided in this podcast. Any advice provided is not personalised to you and does not consider your individual circumstances, situation, needs, or goals. A Financial Advice Disclosure Statement for Opes Partners is available ⁠here⁠ https://www.opespartners.co.nz/disclosure.

• 0:08Speaker 00

  Hello and welcome along to the Property Academy Podcast by Opes Partners. I'm your host, Seb McKnight.

• 0:12Speaker 01

  And I'm Andrew O'Connell.

• 0:13Speaker 00

  And this is a show that helps Kiwis go from zero to five investment property. So you could be financially free and stick around for the next 15 minutes because you're going to get our initial raw reaction to the election result, what it means for property investors and the policies that are most likely to come in once a coalition is formed. Now, bear in mind, this is not a politics show, it's a property show, but property is a political football and so we often need to talk about the policies that impact us. Now, Andrew and I are recording this the morning after the election result. I had my very own little election party. I was a bit worried I was going to be very hungover with the amount that some of my friends

• 0:54Speaker 00

  drank, but actually we're really bright eyed and keen to talk about what happened. Now, Andrew, just recap for us. I know you, I haven't given any numbers in front of you, so it really is our raw reaction. What are the numbers looking like?

• 1:09Speaker 01

  It was in my mind, a really tight race and Ed and I had this conversation when we first started today and Ed knows a lot more about politics than me, but the way I read it when I was looking at it at probably, I think about one o'clock in the morning and then about seven o'clock this morning is it could go either way. But Ed's of the opinion that actually it's pretty much set in stone.

• 1:30Speaker 00

  Well, I wouldn't quite say set in stone, but it is, if I was a National Party MP, especially one who won an electorate seat, you would be a lot more comfortable this morning. I thought the polls would have suggested that it was going to go much worse for the right leaning bloc. As it stands today, they would need 66 seats to govern and at the moment, it looks like they've got 67 on today's numbers. Now, the reason that we're talking about it being a little more knife edge is because we've still got about 400,000 special votes to count. Typically, those would favour left leaning parties.

• 2:09Speaker 00

  However, this election is different because in the past, what would usually happen with those special votes is the National Party would lose one or two seats and those seats would then go to a Labour Green Party, most of the time. That's what's happened in the past. However, this time will be different because National doesn't have any list seats, they've only got electorate seats. So even if their party vote dips, it doesn't mean they're going to lose any seats. Now, it's all a bit mathy and nerdy, right? But one of my favourite political bloggers, because I'm a, I'm a bit of a politics nerd, is a pollster called David Farah. Now, full disclosure, he is like real National Party aligned, but he writes really well

• 2:54Speaker 00

  from like a nerdy mathematical perspective. And he was writing this morning about what are the pathways to power? And basically for Labour to form a government, what would need to happen is on the special votes, National would need to lose Waikato, which they are currently holding by about 150 odd votes. So they'll need to lose that seat. Then, once the special votes are counted, New Zealand First would need to lose a list seat, which hasn't happened ever under MMP so far. Then both Labour and the Greens would need to gain a list seat. So they'd need an additional two seats. Then the Opportunity Party would need to fail to negotiate an agreement with National.

• 3:33Speaker 00

  Now, remember Opportunity Party said they would negotiate first with the largest party. At the moment, National's got 42 seats based on these provisional results. Labour has got 36 seats. It is almost certain that National will be the largest party in Parliament. So Opportunity is going to go and talk to them first. Kule Wong confirmed that at her election party last night. And then on top of that, Labour would need to negotiate an agreement with the Greens, Te Pātī Maori and Opportunity. And even in that situation, that would give them a one seat majority. Now, it's mathematically possible that Labour could lead the next government. Like it is possible, I don't want to rule it out entirely, but it is looking way less

• 4:17Speaker 00

  likely than it did look the night before the election, where the polls were looking much more favourable for Labour and much worse for National. Actually, this is probably the best result that a right wing government could hope for, given where the polls were.

• 4:32Speaker 01

  Now, just explain what special votes are.

• 4:36Speaker 00

  So this is somebody like my brother in law, who only recently got on to the election roll because he is originally Italian, now lives in New Zealand. So because of that, he is a special vote. Let's say that I was down in Christchurch, I live in Auckland, I vote in the Tamaki electorate. Let's say I was in Christchurch for work and I had to vote in Christchurch. Well, because I'm not at home, when I go and put my vote into the box, I put it into the special vote box because I don't live in Christchurch. And so those get counted after the fact, right? Because you might have those votes all over the country and so it's a bit more difficult to count and say, oh yes, this one's actually for Tamaki, but we happen to have the piece of paper down in Christchurch.

• 5:20Speaker 00

  There's about 90 to 100,000 overseas voters as well. So you guys would know my friend Sim Kerr, she recently moved to New York with her husband and she and her husband would have voted overseas and because of that, that's a special vote, it takes a wee while for that to get counted. Now, in the past, as we said, those have tended to favour the left wing parties. What I would just say as well though, is there are fewer special votes this year compared to the last election. Last election, special votes made up about 20% of the votes. This election, it's about 14% of the votes, based on our current estimate right now. But if we think about those special votes, which we've still got to count, when will they all be counted? Like, when will we know the actual final result, not the provisional result?

• 6:05Speaker 01

  So that's not for another three weeks. So the 27th of November is the date that they were finally counted. It seems like a long time to me. Is that, am I being unreasonable?

• 6:15Speaker 00

  No, it's basically what it usually is, right? It takes a couple of weeks to get it done. I think it's quite amazing that they count all, what is it, about two and a half million odd votes on day one, right? Like, that takes a single day to count quite a lot of votes.

• 6:29Speaker 01

  But that's why I don't understand why it takes so long to get the special votes done?

• 6:33Speaker 00

  I've got no idea. I couldn't even tell you the answer, Andrew. I'm a geek, but I'm not that much of a geek. But what we do know now is if these numbers hold, there is a pretty decent shot that the current coalition, which is National, New Zealand First and ACT could continue to govern and Labour, Opportunity, Greens and Te Pātī Maori would be on the crossbenches on these numbers. Even if the current coalition loses some seats, it looks like Opportunity would negotiate with them first.

• 7:01Speaker 01

  One thing that you said before was the Opportunity Party could do a deal with National. But I was watching a lot of the leaders debates leading up to the election and a lot of the time, it was put to Christopher Luxon that had put a line in the sand and said, I'm not going to do a deal with the Opportunity Party. Now, surely that means that he's not going to pick up the phone and talk to them and they're going to go inside with the left.

• 7:26Speaker 00

  I don't really buy into that at all. I think it is, it was a smart move to say, we're going to rule them out. Because what you're really saying is, if you're a National, ACT or New Zealand First voter, don't vote for Opportunity, vote for us instead. So I see this as a way of them trying to shore up their vote. But if your decision is be the Prime Minister or not be the Prime Minister, which are you choosing? Of course, you're going to pick up the phone and even if Christopher Luxon didn't want to do that, what I anticipate would happen is they could roll him as leader. Now, we've got Erica Stanford as the leader of the National Party, she picks up the phone, she made no such commitment and there we go. But again, on today's votes, they would actually not need the Opportunity Party in order to form a coalition.

• 8:11Speaker 00

  Though of course, we've got a few more votes that we've still got to count, about 14% of the votes. Now, that's all great political chat, but as we said, this is not a politics show, this is a property show. So what does this mean for the policies? Now, as I've been sitting here, writing my notes this morning, thinking about it, one of the things struck me, this is the fourth time in 15 years that a capital gains tax has seriously been on the cards. And this is the fourth time where it seems, where it appears to have been defeated. Remember, the Labour Party campaigned on a capital gains tax in 2011 under Phil Gough. They did it again in 2014 under David Cunliffe.

• 8:54Speaker 00

  In 2017, they didn't directly campaign on a capital gains tax under Jacinda Ardun, but they said they were going to set up a tax working group, which recommended in 2019 a capital gains tax. Winston Peters shot that down. They then brought it again in 2026 and it appears to have been shot down again. Now, Andrew, you've often said to me in the past that you think a capital gains tax in New Zealand is inevitable, but it keeps on not getting through.

• 9:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I, I just think because it's such a common theme when we lead up to an election, I think one day we are going to get a, probably a left-leaning government that will put this in place. Now, does that mean it will last? Absolutely not. But I think that at some stage, it is probably very likely, and I kind of just carry on investing regardless.

• 9:49Speaker 00

  So, second thing that I've been pondering about is interest deductibility. Now, Labour ruled it out, right? So, it's highly unlikely, even if Labour got in, which doesn't look that likely right now, it didn't look like interest deductibility would get removed again. Remember, both Te Pātoumaori and also the Green Party were campaigning on removing interest deductibility. Remember, they called it a tax cut for landlords. Now, a lot of that was reacting to what the National Act in New Zealand First government did in 2023, where they brought interest deductibility back in. And then, a lot of the left-leaning parties were saying, this is a big tax cut for landlords. Now, that appears to have been defeated on these numbers. Of course, they could change slightly, but on these

• 10:34Speaker 00

  numbers, highly likely that's been defeated. I'm wondering in three years' time, whether the Green Party are going to campaign on it again. And the reason is, in three years' time, it's very likely that voters will have forgotten about the tax cut for landlord argument, because it'd be about five years old. Or is that just wishful thinking and saying, oh, I'm not sure if it'll make a comeback?

• 10:55Speaker 01

  You know what? I kind of think that it's such a flawed model, because it ends up just affecting the tenants who they're trying to benefit, that I think that, once we get a change in some of the leaders, you're going to get some clearer heads, because it doesn't make economic sense.

• 11:12Speaker 00

  Okay. But do you reckon they've got to campaign on it in three years' time? I know that this is like, nobody's going to hold you to this, but what do you reckon?

• 11:19Speaker 01

  I think that Chloe Swarmsbrook will absolutely still have the opinion that it's the right thing to do. But if the Greens get a change in leadership, that won't be the case anymore.

• 11:29Speaker 00

  Okay, that's interesting. I don't reckon she's going anywhere. She's so popular among Green Party members. Let's talk about some of the other controversial policies that were on the table that would impact property investors. An interesting one is land tax. And I was just talking to you before we hit record about the idiots that I'm seeing on Facebook. And I'm talking about like, people who comment on property investment. I saw one person, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna read out the name, but one person, I was just shaking my head. I'm like, this is like ultimate clickbait, mate. But what this person was saying is, Opportunity Party's coming in, that means a land tax is very likely, that means you should go and calculate how much your land tax would

• 12:12Speaker 00

  be, and put up the rent right now. Like, literally, it said, run the numbers, act accordingly. I'm like, wait a second, wait a second, wait a second. First of all, Opportunity Party are not currently needed based on the numbers to form a national-led coalition. Secondly, the Opportunity Party leader, Kewley Wong, has said the land tax is not a bottom line in their negotiating. They've released their five bottom lines. One is around the Commerce Commission and giving the Commerce Commission more powers. Other policies that are bottom lines for Opportunity are donation reform, like limiting the amount that any one person can donate to a political party. Another one is having a 10-year health plan. Another

• 12:55Speaker 00

  one is about climate change. And another one is about banning bottom trawling in the fishing industry. Land tax is not a bottom line for the Opportunity Party, and they have said that they would seek to put it on the table, but it's going to take a long time for this to go ahead. Landlords should not be doing anything to their rent, but in fear of a land tax at the moment. And actually, you couldn't, because your rents are not based on your costs, it's based on what's happening in the market.

• 13:20Speaker 01

  Let me put this to you and see what you, you think about it. I've been thinking about some of the kind of wild policies that come out from some of these smaller parties. And I wondered whether or not they just throw all these extreme things out there to try and get a bit of buy-in from people, so that they get the votes, even though, you know, they're probably not going to actually get that across the line in negotiations?

• 13:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, 100%. If you're a minor party, you can say whatever the hell you want, and you've got almost no accountability for it, because you can say, well, when we did our coalition negotiations, I couldn't get that across the line. So, that's definitely the case, right? But I do want to talk about some of the other policies that would benefit property investors. So, if we look at the Act Party's policy, where they wanted to change the ring fencing rules, so that if you made a tax loss on your investment property, you can claim some of the tax back that you paid through working your normal job, that's what they campaigned on. I think there is zero chance of that policy seeing the light of day. What's your take?

• 14:20Speaker 01

  I'm not sure about that one. I think that that's probably one of those, again, policies that's been thrown out there, because it'd get a few votes, but it probably isn't going to get across the line with the negotiations.

• 14:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, I don't, I don't think that one's coming. Buying back the BNZ, I reckon that one's going absolutely nowhere as well. That was a New Zealand First policy.

• 14:39Speaker 01

  We don't even have the money for it.

• 14:41Speaker 00

  So, if I look at that list, though, all of the controversial policies that either would have harmed or benefited property investors, to be honest, I don't think any of them are going to make it through at all. I think we're going to see a lot of status quo over the next three years, which is very different from what happened last election, right? Last election, National became in, lots of policy changes, you know, interest deductibility restored, 90-day no-course terminations, those were back in, we had changes around pet bonds, we had changes around the bright line test, we had heaps of changes last time for property investors. I think there's basically no real change in terms of what's coming for us, which actually I, I kind of welcome, as opposed to being kicked around

• 15:24Speaker 00

  like a political football, it would be quite nice to not be that this year.

• 15:28Speaker 01

  And I kind of think with the results of the midterm election in the US, I think we're going to see a bit more stability over the next few while. So, I think this will probably give businesses a bit more confidence. So, I'm hoping to see a bit more positive news over the next few years.

• 15:42Speaker 00

  I mean, that'd be nice. Let's see if we ever get any positive news at any time. Now, the other question, though, is what does this mean for property investors, especially those in specific regions, right? Because then that's where campaigning on cutting another 9,000 public service jobs. So, does that mean that some regions, like perhaps Wellington, could do even more poorly?

• 16:07Speaker 01

  I don't see Wellington recovering anytime soon, frankly. I think that it is very dependent on government spending. Until we get a left-leaning government, who tend to spend more money, you're not going to see a great increase in terms of confidence there. Do you think any differently?

• 16:21Speaker 00

  Well, I'll just say, in terms of public sector jobs, right, there is often this perception that they are all in Wellington, because that is where the beehive is. But in actual fact, yes, you do have a lot of government jobs in Wellington, but you also have a lot of government jobs in Auckland. So, it's not like 9,000 jobs are necessarily going to be cut in Wellington, though they could be more affected. So, I'm just trying to put it a little bit more in proportion. But I agree with the assessment that, of all of the regions in New Zealand, the Wellington property market is likely to take the longest to recover. Again, I think I talked about this recently in a podcast, or one that's about to come out. I give Wellington about a 50% chance that property values recover

• 17:01Speaker 00

  in seven years. That is two years slower than the next, like, slowest recovery that I am putting numbers around at the moment. But I think there's a podcast coming out about that shortly. And in the past 15 minutes, you've got our initial raw reaction to the election result, what it means for property investors, and the policies that are most likely to come in once a coalition is formed. Right, let's wrap it up there. But please don't forget to rate, review and subscribe to the podcast. Really does help us get the message out to more people.

• 17:38Speaker 00

  Thanks for listening to the Property Academy Podcast. I'm your host, Stephen Knight.

• 17:41Speaker 01

  And I'm your host, Nickel.

• 17:41Speaker 00

  We're going to be back here tomorrow with even more daily strategies, tactics and insights to help you get the most out of the New Zealand property market. Until next time.