Political fatigue syndrome is a real condition, where voters become exhausted and disenchanted, and feel that their vote won’t make any difference.<\/p>\n
Associate professor of psychology at Auckland University, Danny Osborne, specialises in political psychology.<\/p>\n
He told Checkpoint that it was natural for voters to become somewhat disconnected throughout the lead up to any election.<\/p>\n
“I think there’s definitely a bit of fatigue at the moment, partly due to just the constant barrage of policies that are leaking out at the moment.”<\/p>\n
Osborne said that policies being announced on a daily basis could lead to people quickly becoming overwhelmed.<\/p>\n
“There’s reasons for doing it this particular way. You’re able to dominate the headlines for the given day when you release a new policy, [but] at the same time, the downside to that is voters do get a bit fatigued in the lead up to the election.”<\/p>\n
![\"Election](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/4JH13QQ_IMG_0350_jpg.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Evie Richardson<\/p>\n
Mudslinging between politicians was another major turnoff for voters, Osborne said.<\/p>\n
“When parties and politicians go negative, it does lead to this decline in political efficacy and sense that you can do something about the upcoming election.”<\/p>\n
Checkpoint took to the streets of Auckland’s Onehunga to see how voters were feeling in the lead to up the election.<\/p>\n
One man said while he was interested in politics, he had been seeing almost “too much” about the election campaign.<\/p>\n
“I don’t watch the debates, it just doesn’t seem to have a lot of point to it, they just sort of slug it out.”<\/p>\n
In terms of what the parties were offering, he said he thought the options to vote for were good, but that the minor parties were holding too much power.<\/p>\n
One woman told Checkpoint she wasn’t “very political” and thought she was somewhere it the middle when it came to being engaged with the campaign.<\/p>\n
“I’m not really listening to loads … I know who I’m going to vote for, and that’s about it.”<\/p>\n
She said apart from the Green Party, she felt there wasn’t much difference between all the parties.<\/p>\n
Her sentiment was echoed by other voters.<\/p>\n
![\"Election](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/4JH13PX_IMG_0354_jpg.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Evie Richardson<\/p>\n
“I don’t think any of the major parties are giving any big bright ideas,” another man said.<\/p>\n
Another woman, who told Checkpoint she was a university lecturer working in health care, said she had been thinking about the election a lot.<\/p>\n
She said she was worried about the low engagement she was seeing among her students.<\/p>\n
“It’s just priorities, they’re just trying to survive, we barely have students showing up to lectures, let alone [voting], they’re trying to survive, get food, petrol, it’s just the whole cost of living.”<\/p>\n
She said she felt a big change was needed after this election.<\/p>\n
“We have to be hopeful, otherwise we’ll just be crying all the time.”<\/p>\n
Another man told Checkpoint he hadn’t really thought much about the election yet, and had been too busy to look into what the parties were offering.<\/p>\n
“I think we’re going to be stuffed either way.”<\/p>\n
Osborne said the way for people to stay engaged was to talk to friends and colleagues about what was happening, and trying to keep up with the news on a daily basis.<\/p>\n
He said voters needed to remember that the MMP system meant their vote would be sure to make a difference in the outcome of this election.<\/p>\n
“It’s important for voters to remain optimistic that although maybe your party isn’t going to be a major party who gets in, you can still influence the outcome of an election by voting for whichever party is best representing your policies.”<\/p>\n
Voters felt most valued when politicians reflect and support policies that are relevant to people, Osborne said.<\/p>\n
“The cost of living crisis is impacting everyone, and it’s really hard to tell voters to stay informed with politics and read the news … when you’re worried about putting food on the table.”<\/p>\n
“I think the ways that politicians can perhaps break through that barrier is by consistently talking about the policies and explaining how your policies are going to improve people’s lives.”<\/p>\n
Osborne said that it was “inspiring” that people have the opportunity to change the direction of the country for the next three years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Are you ‘politically fatigued’ by the election? Are you politically worn out? There’s still 29 days to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":625348,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-625347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625347","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=625347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}