The Spinoff\u2019s hand-selected group of politics watchers share their most outlandish political prophecies for the coming year.<\/p>\n
Toby Manhire (editor-at-large, The Spinoff)<\/p>\n
We will drown in an alphabet soup of recovery, with economic commentators fizzing at the bit to demonstrate their knowledge of the geometric form of letters by declaring it to be variously a U-shaped, L-shaped, V-shaped or, especially, K-shaped recovery. Extra points if you spot an inverted-square-root-shaped recovery.<\/p>\n
Mihingarangi Forbes (host, RNZ\u2019s Mata; co-host, RNZ\u2019s Saturday Morning)<\/p>\n
Women will lead four of the six political parties in parliament.<\/p>\n
Lyric Waiwiri-Smith (politics reporter, The Spinoff)<\/p>\n
We\u2019re gonna party like it\u2019s 2017: climate change and drug reform will suddenly be at the\u00a0top of our minds again, a legacy party will realise it needs a last-minute leadership swap if it wants to win the general election, and we\u2019ll end up with a Labour\/NZ First-led coalition government. David Seymour, upon realising he\u2019s outlived the peak of the Act Party, ends the year by announcing his plans to retire in mid-2027.<\/p>\n
David Seymour<\/p>\n
Andrew Geddis (law professor, University of Otago)<\/p>\n
Not so wild maybe, but the AI bubble bursts and we plunge into another GFC that makes 2008 look like a mild correction \u2013 and throws everyone\u2019s policy plans out the window.<\/p>\n
Veronica Schmidt (editor, The Spinoff)<\/p>\n
Masses of artists, writers, journalists, musicians, film makers, designers, publishers and record labels will lawyer up and take on the companies stealing their work to power AI.<\/p>\n
Lara Greaves (associate politics professor, Victoria University of Wellington)<\/p>\n
A new party enters parliament. We are due a new one: the last time this happened was 2011.<\/p>\n
Alice Neville (deputy editor, The Spinoff)<\/p>\n
Winston Peters realises he\u2019s bone-tired. He decides he doesn\u2019t have another election in him. Shane Jones ponders stepping up but decides that without his dear leader, he simply can\u2019t carry on. They both retire from parliament. Andy Foster assumes the mantle of leader and gives NZ First a woke makeover, which captures the hearts and minds of the voters of Aotearoa New Zealand.<\/a> NZ First records its best-ever election result.<\/p>\n Hayden Donnell (senior writer, The Spinoff)<\/p>\n Chris Luxon will still not agree to appear on Q&A, forcing Jack Tame to unleash two years of pent-up financial gotchas in the direction of a nearby egg before collapsing on the ground weeping. Butter prices will come down.<\/p>\n Annabelle Lee-Mather (producer, RNZ\u2019s Mata; co-host, Gone by Lunchtime)<\/p>\n It\u2019s not really a wild prediction but it seems inevitable we\u2019ll see a new M\u0101ori political party before the next election.<\/p>\n Duncan Greive (founder, The Spinoff)<\/p>\n An external shock (AI bubble pop; AI popping employment; a non-phoney trade war) obliterates best-laid plans and becomes the main backdrop to the election.<\/p>\n Got a wild political prophecy for 2026? Share it in the comments below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Spinoff\u2019s hand-selected group of politics watchers share their most outlandish political prophecies for the coming year. Toby…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":211429,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[492,112585,111,43,139,69,135,105060],"class_list":["post-211428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-comments-enabled","tag-election-2026","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-politics","tag-year-in-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}