Winston Peters announced on 5 July 2026 that NZ First wants to change who can vote in New Zealand. Currently, permanent residents and people on work or study visas can vote if they have lived here continuously for at least one year. Peters' party wants to stop that, so only New Zealand citizens could vote.

Right now, the Electoral Act allows legal residents with a one-year residence to vote, as long as their visa doesn't have a fixed end date. That covers a lot of people: those on work visas, study visas, and permanent residents. NZ First's proposal would change that line. Only citizens would be able to vote.

Peters said citizenship is different from permanent residence. Permanent residence lets you live, work, and study here. Citizenship is a different kind of status—a formal bond to the country. The party says its goal is to "restore the basic democratic principle that the right to decide New Zealand's future belongs to New Zealand citizens."

This is familiar territory for NZ First. The party has long focused on sovereignty and questioned immigration levels. Peters has raised similar issues many times in his political career. This particular proposal is more focused than earlier ones—it is not about immigration limits, but about who gets to vote.

Other countries do this. Most wealthy countries only let their citizens vote in national elections. New Zealand is unusual: along with the UK, Denmark, and a few others, it lets non-citizen residents vote. The argument against Peters' plan is straightforward: permanent residents pay taxes, follow the law, and often stay for decades. If they cannot vote, there is no direct link between what they pay for and what they can say about.

Changing this would require amending the Electoral Act. Lawyers would check whether it breaks the Bill of Rights Act 1990, which protects people from discrimination based on where they were born. The government's chief legal adviser might flag concerns—not a block, but a political problem. Making the change permanent would need either three-quarters of Parliament to agree or a public referendum.

NZ First is part of the National-led government now, but the party holds only five of the 123 seats in Parliament. It cannot pass a law alone. National, which leads the coalition, has not said it supports this idea. Without coalition agreement, this is just an election promise, not something likely to happen soon.

The timing fits NZ First's pattern. Two years before the 2026 election, Peters is marking out his party's position. The strategy is simple: announce the policy early, survive the criticism, and use it as a bargaining chip in coalition talks. Whether this works depends on whether other parties want to debate who should count as a democratic participant—and most do not, because the political cost is too high.

If it did happen, the Electoral Commission would need to change how it registers voters. People already on the voting roll who are not citizens would have to be dealt with somehow. The government has not said whether it will pursue this.