Opportunity’s Qiulae Wong on confidence-and-supply and bottom lines as poll puts party at 8%
The Opportunity Party would be “very open” to a confidence-and-supply agreement with the next government, rather than a formal coalition, “if it means we can stay true to who we are”, leader Qiulae Wong says.
And Act Party leader David Seymour is not ruling out working with Opportunity – if they give up key “radical left-wing” policies including a land tax.
It comes after Opportunity – formerly TOP – surged to 8% in the latest 1News-Verian poll, potentially meaning it could act as kingmaker post-November 7.
Wong told Herald NOW’S Ryan Bridge Today that Opportunity wouldn’t reveal its bottom lines for another month or so, as it wanted to see what other parties were putting on the table.
“That will influence ultimately where we think we can work with them, where we could push them harder on different issues, and so that’s ultimately why we want to do it closer to the election,” she said.
Asked if a land tax was foundational to its policy plan, Wong said she had been clear that Opportunity did not expect tax reform to happen overnight.
“We’ve got strong policies around innovation, competition, our energy market – these are things that are going to affect the cost of living for New Zealanders and they don’t require a change in our tax system to happen.”
Opportunity had not held any formal discussions with other party leaders about coalition arrangements, she said.
The poll was carried out from August 8 to 11, before Wednesday’s attempted National leadership spill.
It put Labour on 30%, National on 29%, Act on 9%, New Zealand First on 8%, the Greens on 12% and Te Pāti Māori on 1%.
Those numbers would see Labour able to form a government with the Greens, Opportunity and at least one other partner. National, Act and NZ First would have a combined 57 seats and no clear way to power, with Christopher Luxon having ruled out working with Opportunity due to its tax policy.
However, Seymour confirmed to Ryan Bridge Today that Act was open to an arrangement with Opportunity, while saying a land tax and universal basic income were “not happening”.
Asked if it was “not a no”, he said “no” - adding “let’s see if they get there, first of all. I mean, there’s lots of hype right now, but let’s see”.
Taxing every piece of land in New Zealand was “a policy that we just can’t abide”, while the UBI plans were “extraordinary”, he told Newstalk ZB’s Ryan Bridge Early Edition earlier this morning.
But pushed repeatedly on whether his party could be in a governing coalition with Opportunity, Seymour said he was focusing on policy and it appeared the party was happy to give those two policies up.
“[It] makes you wonder if they’re really the Opportunity Party or the Opportunist Party.”