Commentary: Opportunity and the Greens lead with comprehensive anti-corruption manifestos while the Government halts reform work, say Dr Fiona Sing and Prof Boyd Swinburn from the School of Population Health, University of Auckland, and Marnie Prickett, Research Fellow, Department of Public Health, University of Otago, Wellington.
From the PHCC survey of political parties on their positions on lobbying laws, political donations and other pro-democracy policies, two stood out.
New laws are urgently needed to address the ‘policy capture’ that money can buy, support public trust in government and improve the health and wellbeing of New Zealanders.
Lobbying is an important part of democracy, but the ‘policy capture’ that money can buy creates a playing field heavily tilted in favour of vested interests. This means policy development can be stacked against those groups that lobby in the interests of health, society, and the environment.
Lobbying is concerning if it is carried out without transparency, so that the public cannot see who is influencing whom. And if some people have special access to decision-makers, they have greater power to shape policies towards their own interests and away from the common good. These are all ways in which the playing field is tilted towards private and commercial vested interests.
An imbalance of influence and power undermines public trust in government and can lead to decisions that have negative effects on the health and wellbeing of people and the environment. Therefore, we wanted to know where the political parties stood on improving transparency in democracy and addressing the imbalance of influence and power.
A 2025 Health Coalition Aotearoa report entitled Let’s level the playing field calls for a Regulation of Lobbying Act. This would include an online, publicly accessible and searchable register; a “cooling off” period of one to three years to slow the revolving door between government and lobbying; a mandatory code of conduct for lobbyists; and the creation of an Integrity Commission to enforce these provisions. These are policies that are already implemented in other OECD countries to increase the transparency and integrity in policymaking.
The PHCC asked each political party to complete a survey with the questions:
Will your party introduce an online, public and searchable register of lobbyists to introduce greater transparency to lobbying in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ)?
Will your party introduce legislation to cap political donations, loans and in-kind contributions?
Please expand on any other policies your party may have to make our democratic processes fairer, more transparent and less subject to undue influence or imbalances of public vs private power (e.g., support for citizens’ assemblies).
What they said
Greens, Labour, Opportunity, and Te Pāti Māori said they supported a lobby register and capping of political donations. Those are two important policies to improve transparent democracy, so that is a great step forward. Both Opportunity and Greens have listed these specific policies in their manifesto. Labour, Te Pāti Māori and New Zealand First gave general or partial endorsement for these policies so this support may be valuable if the policies rise up the political agenda.
Opportunity, the Greens, and, to a lesser extent, Labour, Te Pāti Māori and NZ First, also included other proposed pro-democracy policies such as citizens assemblies, extending the voting age to 16, implementing the recommendations of the 2023 Independent Electoral Review, and establishing deliberative dialogues towards constitutional reform.
Opportunity’s ‘Clean up politics’ policy and the Greens’ ‘Real democracy’ policy closely reflect the recommendations included in the Health Coalition Aotearoa report. Both policies include cooling-off periods to deal with the revolving door between ministers and lobbyists, a lobby register, a code of conduct for lobbyists, reform of political donations, and an independent commissioner to enforce the lobbying laws. Opportunity also proposes prohibiting inaccurate and misleading election statements, strengthening the Official Information Act and establishing an independent policy costing unit. These are policies already implemented in other OECD countries to increase the transparency and integrity in policymaking.
Of particular interest to public health are Labour’s and Opportunity’s policies on excluding health-harming industries from policymaking. Labour commits to legislating to ensure NZ meets its obligations under the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control including ensuring the tobacco industry can’t influence public health policy (which is expressly provided for in Article 5.3 of the FCTC). Ayesha Verrall has a Member’s Bill (the Tobacco Transparency Bill) in the ‘biscuit tin’. Opportunity cross references its intentions on increasing transparency in its ‘Health Policy’, expressly mentioning “restrictions on political influence of industries like tobacco”.
It was very disappointing that National and Act failed to submit a response to the three questions posed. Neither party had pro-democracy policies on their website. For the National Party, this failure follows on from no-shows at two political health forums (hosted by Health Coalition Aotearoa and the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists), sending low-ranked Sam Uffindell to a Business NZ forum on health and not participating in the Health Coalition Aotearoa’s survey of prevention policy positions.
National previously expressed concern about the revolving door between Parliament and the lobbyist profession. When Labour was in power, Simeon Brown called for a ‘cooling off’ period on MPs becoming lobbyists. Yet when in power, the Minister of Justice, Paul Goldsmith, halted the ministry’s work on lobbying reform.
Summing up
There is broad support among the political parties for capping of political donations and a lobby register, but patchier support for other important transparency policies. Opportunity and the Greens have the clearest policy manifesto, with Opportunity being the most extensive. Labour and Opportunity specifically acknowledge removing health harming industry’s influence over policy making.
This is an abridged version of a Public Health Communication Centre Briefing available on https://www.phcc.org.nz/briefing/election-2026-political-parties-positions-lobbying-political-donations-and-other-pro along with the full political party responses to the survey.
This piece first appeared on Newsroom, 29 September 2026.