FORGED IN FAILURE AFTER FAILURE
Founded in 2016 by eccentric millionaire and Wellington Phoenix Co-Owner Gareth Morgan, The Opportunities Party was at best quixotic and at worst your most stoned friends half-baked take on civics lessons they hadn’t really paid attention to. Morgan was already somewhat of a meme-worthy celebrity, and the founding of what was, for all intents and purposes, a vanity party was a logical step. This was, after all the brainchild of a grown man who, outside of E-commerce was most famous for declaring war on cats (incidentally leading Nexus to an award winning “Gareth Morgan Pussy Slayer” headline in the process).
It wasn’t that ‘TOP’ didn’t have intriguing ideas, but they were bland. Their logo was clipart and history has proven the hot takes by Morgan – like the Labour Party changing to Jacinda Arden won’t help because it is like “Putting lipstick on a pig” – were just shit.
Within an election cycle, Morgan and most of his financial capital were out and replaced with Chief of Staff Geoff Simmons, a former treasury analyst and improv theatre troupe leader who tried to take the minor party down the well-travelled ‘policy-wonk’ space. The idea of “Trust us we know more about this shit than you do” had previously been a playbook used by Green Party leader Russell Norman and United Future Bowtie aficionado Peter Dunne with reasonable success. Unfortunately, unlike those two, Simmons had all the charisma of someone who does improv.
Here is the crazy part: The Opportunities Party then had two more leaders between 2020 and 2023 and three more deputy leaders before just going into stasis. Don’t feel bad if you didn’t know that. We researched it; looked each of them up, read bios, viewed photos… and not a single one of them sparked any recognition. In truth, we debated whether we needed to find Geoff Simmons’ last name because we wondered if anyone outside of the Simmons family cared.
FEWER OPPORTUNITIES AND ONE Q?
In November 2025, something kind of interesting happened. Not just a spark of life, but a rebrand under Qiulae Wong or Leader Q, as they have thankfully already stopped branding her. This wasn’t really a rebrand, though it was more of a complete re-think. The Opportunities Party became The Opportunity. Qiulae Wong, either intentionally or unintentionally, began to pose the question that every first-year philosophy student must grasp. Is it the same car if I take all the parts and replace them? This young business leader, and mother of two, with a background in ethical fast fashion and business sustainability chose to throw out all the rougher edges of her predecessors and reposition the party as a centrist green alternative, even going so far as to adopt the colour teal as a nod to the notion that it can be a green alternative for disaffected National (and Labour voters) who aren’t comfortable with as big an ideological swing. You need more proof that Qiulae was banishing the history of the party into a footnote then you should check out some of her recent interviews, we watch Jack Tame and Q and A four months ago, a Zoom sit-down with BHN around the same time, The Platform, where she spoke with evil racist Sean Plunket and a beer with Lloyd Burr last week. Spoiler alert; she actually held her own and wasn’t boring. But in a number of those interviews she was asked about her political heroes and every time it was former Green Party Leader James Shaw. Any mention of her predecessors was met with a polite nod to the past and a “we have their blessing to move on.”
POLICIES AND POSITIONS
Ok, this is the honey trap for anyone who is remotely interested because it kinda marginalizes and then normalizes some of the old, weirder ideas like citizen forums, which is exactly what it sounds like. A group of randomly selected citizens is basically a jury tasked with policy design for the country with the help of some experts. Sort of a living litmus test for common sense.
The rest then falls under what Qiulae is branding “radical common sense.” A universal basic income for everyone but the elite; green-adjacent policies on building, land use, mining, solar, and energy creation without some of the hardline non-negotiables; funding ambulances; better pay for teachers and health professionals; and all built on the back of a land value tax.
As a frame of reference, two Nexus researchers read every policy position on the Opportunity Website, and they can’t find a single reason why we shouldn’t vote for them. There is a chance we are about to join a cult because no other feature was ready for this issue.
Where they are positioning themselves may undo all of this, though. Because the actual OPPORTUNITY that exists is for people dissatisfied with politics as usual to get NZ First out of the kingmaker role, and to do that, they have to walk the tight rope of working with the left and the right.
WHO IS THIS EVEN FOR?
This is where the problem currently exists. Whoever is doing the marketing for the Opportunity has completely missed it. Obviously, there is a significant space for disaffected and disproportionately female former or current National voters, and the same would be true of ACT if it has female voters. Given their respective recent issues, there is a case to be made that both bald-egg-man Chris and Mad Magazine Mascot Chris are out of touch with the kitchen table. There may even be some disaffected Te Pati Māori voters out there, but when Qiulae is talking about “not being able to take the boat fishing at the beach house” because of commercial overfishing, she has effectively put up a neon sign that says “Students, this isn’t for you!” The OPPORTUNITY is to, somewhere in the next five weeks, release tertiary, rental, and job creation plans that emphasize your UBI, promote free or bonded education to replace student loan schemes and talk about how you can remove predatory behaviour from debt companies and landlords. Then tell them what you have already put out there. Solar, Te Tiriti, better health outcomes, and that thing you said about decriminalizing weed. You are pro-student, you just told anyone
IS THIS AN ACTUAL OPPORTUNITY?
Probably not. And it isn’t your fault. The exact system you want to fix is broken in the way that stops to you from being able to fix it. New Zealand needs to:
Till that is what it looks like 5% is a world away, trust us some of our editors and heroes left Nexus to form the McGillicuddy Serious Party. They only ever got to 0.29% of the party vote and they wanted trial by combat, free dung and everyone to live in castles.
WHERE TO FROM HERE?
As we were putting this together we noticed that it may be a brand new party but it has some of the same old faces. It turns out the candidate for Hamilton East is (once again) the University’s own Dr Naomi Pocock. So in the interest of complete fairness we will send a link to this article to both Dr Pocock and Leader Q (ok that is weirdly enticing) and they can have the time and up to 2 pages in an interview with us to tell us why students should care. . we will sit down with you and the least likely of our editorial and design staff to be tricked into a cult (already ruling out four of them) and video it. We may even get our old friend Darrell and the Good George team back on board for Puppet Master to kick off Puppet Master Politics 2026 so we can day drink cider with you while we do it. AND if you want to take up this OPPORTUNITY (Sorry last pun) then all you have to do is YELL@NEXUSMAG(.co.nz)
