'We’re planning for the future’: NZ's only Pacific party leader promises to be back next election

Alfred Ngaro is already preparing for the 2026 general election.

“For NewZeal, it [the 2023 election] was the beginning. It’s good to put a stake in the ground.”

Ngaro says he's looking ahead to the future, after setting the groundwork in NewZeal’s six week election campaign.

“We want to train and equip the next generation of people who are headed for public office. We see this as a legacy and we want to build off [this election] for the future as well.”

The NewZeal party did not make the 5 per cent threshold to win a seat in government in this year’s election, but party leader Alfred Ngaro is not worried.

“We’re encouraged. We [New Zeal] only had six weeks out there on the campaign trail and out of that we got 12,700 votes.”

The results saw NewZeal receive the third highest polling minority party.

Ngaro, the first Cook Islander to be a MP, told 531pi’s Pacific Mornings he has “no regrets” and likened his party to a team running out onto the political field with a mindset ready to win.

With awareness that it was going to be a huge task in such a short amount of time, Ngaro ensured his team “ran and ran hard”.

Ngaro, a former National party cabinet minister, is the only leader of Pacific descent of a New Zealand political party, confirmed NewZeal will be contesting in the 2026 election.

The Cook Islander is a seasoned politician with three terms of experience under his belt, previously holding roles such as Minister for Pacific Peoples and the Community and Voluntary Sector portfolio in a National-led government.

His personal analysis of the election outcome echoes what many have said post October 14: “People did want change.”

Despite his belief in National newcomer Angee Nicholas, who he reckons is “a very clever and capable person”, Ngaro says the challenge for her is that if she secures her seat - how will she work to reflect Pacific values in government on her own?

“We’re going to have very few people inside that parliament in regards to the government benches that they can call on to represent our people.”

“My concern is how will Pacific people be remembered and reflected in the current coalition of National and ACT? Some of the values have shifted both from National and certainly ACT is not a conservative party.”

Ngaro told Pacific Mornings it’s clear Pacific people have been forgotten by both Labour and National and a direct flow-on effect of this is their absence at the voting booths.

The former National MP has identified that Pacific people don’t only need parties that represent their values, but must also have a good representation of Pacific people.

“I would have thought [National] would have been planning strategically to ensure they (Pacific MPs) were high enough on the list to get in. Agnes would have been great.”

Ngaro also highlights another factor of low voter turnout: an increase in awareness from Pacific people of the true values politicians and their parties share.

“Pacific people have come to a point where they realise that the old Labour, the traditional Labour Party is not the Labour Party that it is. Under the leadership of Jacinda Ardern they have accelerated very liberal moral laws that did not reflect the Pacifica values.”

Ngaro believes NewZeal offers a party with values that Pacific people can align with and that it’s time for Pacific voters to move away from the traditional “red and blue”.

“We need to be self-determining. We need leadership into the future. It’s time for us to change. We need to start determining our future differently, politically than what it has been before and not wait for politics to define the values we have in our communities.”