Heather Roy

15 August 2020

The VoterTorque podcasts have focussed so far on Civics – something it would be great to see more of taught in schools. It’s often hard to convince people that politics does affect our lives. We covered the political spectrum and political compass, where to find information on the election process (the orange man), election advertising, MMP made simple, the polls and the dilemma of the wasted vote.

We’ve also asked listeners to send their questions, which several have. These are answered in this Question Time podcast.

Now it’s time to take a look at the political parties contesting the 2020 General Election. There are 18 parties registered with the Electoral Commission. To register, a party must have 500 paid up members and be able to prove this to the Commission. Voters often think it’s easy to start a party and start lobbying for votes, but it is actually a reasonable undertaking.

The next group of VoterTorque podcasts examines the parties in more detail. We’ve started with an introduction to the 18 parties and tell you a little about the minnows, or micro-parties as the media describe them. Have you heard of the Heartland Party, Advance NZ or Vision New Zealand? Have a listen to learn more:

 

Next we’ve produced a podcast on each of the parties currently in parliament, which we’ll introduce in alphabetical order, to be fair! First up is ACT New Zealand:

 

Then Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand:

 

New Zealand Labour Party:

 

New Zealand National Party:

 

And New Zealand First:

 

There are three other parties who are registering in the polls – the Maori Party, TOP and New Conservatives. We’ll post podcasts on them soon.

If you’ve got questions we haven’t managed to answer yet, or you think we’ve missed the mark with any of our analyses, please contact us through the Contact section on our TorquePoint website. We’ll be doing another Question Time soon too.