This is edition 2026/211 of the Ten@10 newsletter.
Hi all,
This is the Ten@10, where I collate and summarise ten news items you generally won't see in the mainstream media.
Enjoy!
1. Democracy Briefing: The Right face a miserable time in power
Bryce Edwards - The Democracy Project
- 🏛️ Bryce Edwards writes that the parties of the right are much more likely to end up governing, but that in almost any likely scenario it will be a fraught administration, vulnerable to collapse. Winning government, he says, may have been the easy part. Christopher Luxon is on course to be the first prime minister under MMP to lead a government with less than 30% of the party vote, alongside two partners who have both grown at National's expense.
- 🔫 The preliminary result gives the right bloc 67 seats in a Parliament of 131, a majority that rests on seven National overhang seats, with one seat to spare. Almost 400,000 special votes still to be counted before 27 November could reduce that margin or remove it. Josie Pagani told Newstalk ZB that "The fragility in that coalition is going to be extreme." and wrote that she expects "a government that can't get much done because everyone has a veto." At 67-64, two government MPs voting with the opposition would defeat the coalition on any vote; with no seat to spare, a single MP could do it. All 42 of Luxon's MPs hold electorates, so any departure would ordinarily mean a by-election.
- 🛑 Act and NZ First now hold 25 of the coalition's 67 seats, and because every one of the three parties is needed for a majority, NZ First's 12 seats give it as much power to block the government as National's 42. The fight over Finance began before the count was confirmed. Luxon told RNZ, "This is not negotiable. The finance role will go with a National person." David Seymour's reply was "Everything's negotiable, Christopher", and that National needed to recognise that "they are not a National government with two inconvenient bolt-ons; they are now a coalition."
- 📉 National took 29.21% of the party vote, down from 38.1% in 2023, and with no list seats has lost Nicola Willis, Chris Bishop and Paul Goldsmith, who held 19 portfolios between them, and Speaker Gerry Brownlee. Outgoing MP Chris Penk called the result only "ostensibly a reelection", and warned that when a coalition's agenda is seen to be driven by its minor parties, the major party looks as if it has "surrendered politically". Richard Harman reports that National MPs are watching for more concessions and that "The overall sense is that he is now on borrowed time." Peter Dunne says the result leaves National "more than ever as a regional and rural party".
- 🟠 The obvious way to make the government less fragile, Edwards writes, is to bring in Opportunity's seven MPs as a buffer. If the specials cost the coalition its majority, Luxon would have no alternative. Opportunity's bottom lines include recommitting to the Paris Agreement and banning bottom trawling, which Act and NZ First oppose, and it could not replace either of them: National, Act and Opportunity would have 62 seats, and National, NZ First and Opportunity 61. A deal would add a fourth veto player. Earlier this year Luxon wanted all 20 Cabinet seats filled by National ministers and complained about "some yahoo or numpty from some other party" sitting there. National could end up with as few as 10, especially if Opportunity joins.
- 🤝 In a Further Analysis section, Edwards notes that Luxon spent the campaign ruling Opportunity out, then spent an hour with Qiulae Wong in his ninth-floor office on Monday night and described it as a "very positive, very constructive, very good conversation". On Marc Daalder's model for Newsroom, Parliament grows to 132 and the coalition ends on 66, one short of a majority, with Opportunity on eight. If Labour took Wairarapa and NZ First lost its last list seat, the coalition would be on 65 in a House of 130. In either case Luxon could not win a confidence vote if Opportunity voted against him. Act's Paul Henry told RNZ that if Luxon didn't speak to Wong, Seymour would urge him to.
- 📋 Opportunity's five published bottom lines are more powers for the Commerce Commission, including, as The Spinoff reports it, the power to force the structural separation of anti-competitive businesses such as the supermarket duopoly; regulation of lobbying and a cap on political donations; a ten-year health plan; recommitting to Paris and protecting the Climate Change Commission's independence; and a ban on bottom trawling. Wong has also said the party would need to agree on "the overall direction of the country", would take its tax reforms to the table, and has confirmed that Peters can't be foreign minister, the Waitangi Tribunal stays, the minimum wage is not frozen, and beneficiaries are not drug-tested. Her negotiating team will be Wong, deputy Daniel Eb and chief of staff Iain Lees-Galloway, the former Labour minister.
- ⚔️ Several of those demands collide with National's partners. Luxon has called staying in Paris "a non-negotiable in coalition negotiations", but NZ First wants to leave and Act has argued for renegotiating it. Act and NZ First both oppose a trawling ban, though NBR says Opportunity's immediate focus is a ban in sensitive inshore areas and a commitment rather than a set timeline. Asked whether he could sit at Cabinet with Wong, Peters replied, "No, I can't." Don Brash has suggested making Peters Speaker, a role that "carries enormous prestige", with Todd McClay at Foreign Affairs and Seymour at Finance, but Edwards sees no sign that anyone in the three parties has agreed to it.
- 📌 Takeaway: Wong has said that "both coalition and a confidence and supply would require those bottom lines", while on the crossbenches "we would abstain on votes" for confidence and the Budget. In a hung Parliament of 65, 58 and 7, abstention would let the government win 65-58; a vote with the left would tie 65-65 and be lost. Gareth Morgan told Stuff it would be "nuts" to pick a side. Peter Dunne warns that formally joining either bloc could end Opportunity this term. Rodney Hide says a party on the crossbenches would mean Luxon had to "negotiate the Budget with them". A coalition or confidence and supply deal would give Luxon the numbers at the price of Paris and trawling commitments NZ First opposes, plus a third partner to keep satisfied. Abstention would give him office, but a minority government Opportunity could bring down whenever it changed its mind.
