Why Should You Vote NZ First?

In the run-up to the 2026 election, Salient is interviewing all of the major parties to understand their responses to the issues students face. Here, Keegan Langeveld, young New Zealand First chairman and candidate for Auckland’s Maungakiekie electorate pitches NZ First. 

What is the biggest challenge facing students in New Zealand in 2026?

Cost of living, but more specifically power prices. Daily fixed charges have skyrocketed in the last few years, and that's where most students will be hit the hardest.

So what is NZ First proposing to support students?

Regarding power prices, we want to break up the gentailer power companies, so the companies producing and retailing the power are different. Currently they make their own energy and sell it to themselves, which has led to unaffordable prices. In the same vein, we also want to break up the supermarket duopoly to tackle grocery affordability. 

We’ll also invest in different areas of energy such as geothermal and nuclear energy to transform the market and bring down bills.

Those two things will help everyone, but students will benefit disproportionately with their comparatively reduced income. 

Students are currently the only beneficiary group not eligible for the winter energy payment. Is this something NZ First would change?

NZ First was a champion of the winter energy payment when we were previously in government in 2017 and 2020, and looking at reforming it is always on the peripheral, but NZ First can only do so much. With more New Zealand First MPs we can expand the topics we negotiate on, but we have no specific policy on it currently.

In 2023, a two-zone trip on Metlink cost a tertiary student $1.13 at peak time. Currently it costs $2.63, an increase of 132 percent. 50 percent of students get to Vic by public transport; how will NZ First reduce this financial burden?

We’re not in favour of free public transport because most people who use public transport can afford it. I know students are a unique case, but we’re more about making transport more available rather than more affordable, because regardless of the cost, no one can ride an overloaded bus. 

Between 2014 and 2024, the amount course fees could rise each year was between 2 and 2.8 percent. In 2025 and 2026, course fees were allowed to rise by 6 percent. If elected, what would your policy on course fees be?

The best path forward would be to sit down with all of the student unions and look at what kind of fixes are available from a government standpoint. We want tertiary education to be affordable, and unless universities are expanding the services they are offering, a 6% fee rise each year is unreasonable. 

These course fee increases have come as final-year fees-free was removed; is this something NZ First would return? 

In our coalition agreement, we protected the fees-free scheme for an extra two years. If we weren’t in government, it would have been scrapped in 2023, so students have benefitted from us being in government in that respect. 

But ultimately fees-free did not work. Its purpose was to increase participation from disadvantaged communities, but it didn’t. The evidence says most students would have gone to university anyway.

In the past three elections, NZ First has had a policy where for every two years you work in New Zealand in a critical area like teaching, health and engineering, the government will wipe a year off your debt.

We campaigned on this in 2017, 2020, and 2023. It hasn’t been announced whether or not we’ll campaign on it this election, but even if we don’t, NZ First’s youth wing will still be pushing for it. 

Wellington’s unemployment rate is at 6.3 percent, but for those aged between 15 and 24 it is 8.4 percent. There are ten thousand fewer jobs in Wellington than there were last election, and the government is looking to remove 8700 public sector jobs, which would disproportionately affect Wellington. Right now, what incentive is there for a graduate to stay in Wellington?

Fair question.

Not every career has to be in the public service, so we’re trying to diversify Wellington’s economy, as in my anecdotal experience, the public service is an ageing cohort which tends not to bring in many young people anyway. We have to put something else on the table, things like research and development. For example, we funded nuclear research in Lower Hutt, and without 60 million from the New Zealand First Regional Infrastructure Fund, that company would have gone overseas. So by investing in similar companies, we can give graduates an alternative. 

Access to mental health addiction services for young people has declined—there are 5000 fewer people receiving care than five years ago. How would NZ First address the gap between demand for mental health care and the services available? 

It’s our ethos that communities know best how to look after themselves, so one of the things we guaranteed in our coalition agreement was funding Gumboot Friday, a mental health foundation which has delivered 40 thousand free counselling sessions for young people. So NZ First will seek to ensure frontline services like Gumboot Friday are funded and are utilised to reduce the load on the public system. That reduced demand might improve the public system, while still giving people the help they need. 

Thank you for your time, Keegan.

No worries.

Next week: Why should you vote Labour?