Minor parties' 'bottom lines' are political theater, not genuine commitments

When smaller political parties announce their 'bottom lines' during an election campaign—the policies they claim are non-negotiable conditions for joining a government—they are mostly engaged in an elaborate form of political theater. This is the argument that emerges from watching how these commitments actually fare once the votes are counted and real coalition negotiations begin.

Te Pāti Māori and the Opportunity Party have both staked out such positions in this campaign cycle. The Opportunity Party, in particular, has signaled more are coming. But history suggests these declarations should be read as campaign advertising directed at voters who might otherwise drift toward the major parties, rather than as genuine red lines that smaller parties will walk away from government to defend. The mechanism is straightforward: a minor party announces a policy the major party does not support, thereby giving voters a reason to choose them instead of the safer, larger option. Once negotiations actually begin, however, the calculus changes entirely.

The leverage problem is fundamental. A major party can ask a potential coalition partner a simple question: where else will you go? For most smaller parties, the answer is nowhere. They lack the status of a true kingmaker—a party so essential to forming a government that it can genuinely threaten to walk away. Without that leverage, a bottom line becomes a negotiating position, not a boundary. The Greens learned this in 2002 when they declared they would not support a government that allowed genetically modified organisms into the environment after a moratorium expired. Labour simply turned to United Future instead, and the Green position vanished. Before the 2023 election, the Greens again floated the possibility of going to the crossbenches if Labour rejected a wealth tax, but that threat was never tested because it was never credible enough to force Labour's hand.

Winston Peters, the politician most historically associated with bottom lines, has grown notably cagey about the term. When asked recently whether his superannuation policy would be non-negotiable in post-election coalition talks, he dismissed the question as stupid. This from a man who promised voters a binding referendum on the Māori seats before the 2017 election, then never raised it during actual negotiations with Labour. In 2005, Peters declared he would not accept the baubles of office, then promptly sought the Foreign Minister position. The pattern is so established that smaller parties now understand the cost of being too publicly rigid: Act's David Seymour deliberately avoids using the language of bottom lines at all, aware that such declarations can spook voters on the right who fear the tail wagging the dog.

There are exceptions. In 2023, NZ First's commitment to keeping the superannuation age at 65 held firm, even though both National and Act had campaigned to raise it. But this succeeded precisely because NZ First had genuine leverage—National needed it to form a government. The rule, however, remains: smaller parties abandon their non-negotiables far more readily than major parties do. When a minor party caves, it moves on. When a major party breaks a commitment, voters remember it for years. John Key's 2008 and 2011 refusals to work with NZ First carried weight because Key had the numbers without them. Jacinda Ardern's decisions to rule out a Māori seats referendum and wealth and capital gains taxes in 2017 and 2020 stuck because she had the political capital to absorb the cost.

The current political configuration presents an interesting test case. Christopher Luxon appears to treat remaining in the Paris Agreement as genuinely non-negotiable, while both NZ First and Act are campaigning to leave or renegotiate it. If the Opportunity Party continues polling above 5 percent and becomes necessary for a National-led government, Luxon gains an escape route: he can tell Act and NZ First that their climate positions are a barrier to a deal, and use Opportunity's alignment with his own position to justify the rejection. In that scenario, Luxon breaks one commitment to keep another. The question is not whether smaller parties will enforce their bottom lines. The question is whether they will have the leverage to do so, and history suggests the answer is almost always no.