FAQ

How this all works.

Short answers to the questions people ask most. Something missing? Email feedback@fivemillionvoices.nz.

I'm a journalist — who do I talk to?

Email media@fivemillionvoices.nz — it goes straight to the person who runs the site, and media enquiries get answered first.

• What we can help with: how any number on the site was produced, where it traces to in the official record (every division links to its Hansard source), what the community "voices" figures do and don't mean, and background on how Parliament's voting record is published.
• Data and interviews: we're open to licensing the underlying data for journalism and research, and available for comment on the project itself. We don't offer opinions on bills or parties — the site is non-partisan, and so are we.
• Everything else — corrections, feedback, ideas, or something that looks wrong — goes to feedback@fivemillionvoices.nz.

What does PROPOSED mean on a bill?

A proposed bill is still before Parliament — it isn't law yet. Bills become law in stages (first reading → select committee → second reading → committee of the whole House → third reading → Royal assent), and at each reading the House decides either by a counted vote — a division — or, when a reading is uncontested, on the voices.

• The result banner and party positions you see on a proposed bill are from its most recent completed reading — the banner says which one (e.g. "The first reading was agreed").
• A first-reading "aye" isn't final support. Parties often vote a bill through its first reading just to send it to select committee for public submissions, then oppose it later. Positions can and do change between readings.
• When Parliament finally settles a bill's fate, its card updates: passed into law, defeated, withdrawn, or split into separate bills.
• Anyone can vote on a proposed bill — no account needed. To keep the numbers honest, the two kinds of votes are counted separately: anonymous votes are tallied once per browser and shown as indicative, while votes from signed-in, email-verified accounts form the verified one-person-one-voice count. Creating an account keeps your votes across devices and moves your voice into the verified column — it's the number that carries weight, especially on bills Parliament hasn't settled yet.

How do you know these are real people?

We can't prove it — and anyone who tells you they can is selling something. What we can do is make faking it progressively more expensive, and be straight with you about which kind of vote each number is built from. There are three levels.

• 1 — Anonymous, no account. Your choices are stored against a random ID kept in your browser: no name, no email, nothing that points at you. The ID exists only so the same browser isn't counted twice — clear your browser data and it's gone. Anonymous votes count toward the national split but never appear in regional or demographic breakdowns: we know nothing about you, so there's nothing honest to slice.
• 2 — An email account: probably a human. An account ties your votes to one email address, so they're saved, correctable, and follow you between devices. Email is cheap to create, so this is a speed bump, not proof — what it actually buys is a stable identity we can count once, and you can go back and change your mind on.
• 3 — Phone verification: one person, one number. Confirming a mobile with a code is the strongest signal we accept today. Numbers cost money and are far harder to farm than email addresses, so a phone-verified pool is meaningfully harder to stuff — and verification is retroactive, so the votes you've already cast come with you. To be clear about what it is not: a verified phone doesn't prove you're a New Zealander, enrolled, or eligible to vote. It proves a distinct, working phone, and we report it as exactly that.

The tier that doesn't exist yet. New Zealand's Digital Identity Services Trust Framework is new — the first services were only accredited in 2026, and the reusable credential a site like ours could accept isn't available yet. When it is, it will let you prove the two things that actually matter here — NZ citizen or resident, and over 18 — without handing over your name or anything else. That privacy-preserving check is the verification we actually want, and when it's ready we'll integrate it as a fourth tier. We won't bolt on document uploads or ID scans in the meantime: the whole point of this site is that trust is earned by claiming less, not more.

Two floors apply at every level: no national split until at least 5 people have voted on a bill, and nothing broken down by region, age, or party until at least 20 have. Small numbers make confident-looking nonsense. The full detail of what we store at each level is in the privacy statement.

Why can't I find a bill I'm looking for?

Almost always because there's no recorded vote for it yet. Every question on this site is built on a division — Parliament's official counted vote — as published in Hansard's corrected record. Until a bill has one, there's nothing checkable to show. The usual reasons:

• The House hasn't voted on it at all yet. Even a proposed bill is only here because it has already had at least one decided reading — a counted division or a confirmed voice vote. A bill that has just been introduced and hasn't reached that first vote has nothing to show yet. It appears as soon as its first reading is decided and confirmed.
• Hansard hasn't published the division yet. Parliament posts an uncorrected transcript within days, but the corrected record — the one we treat as the source of truth — can run two to three months behind the House. We'd rather show a vote late than show it wrong, so recent divisions appear here once the corrected record lands.
• Its voice vote isn't confirmed yet. Uncontested readings are often decided "on the voices" — MPs calling Aye or No aloud, with no count and no party split. These bills do appear here, labelled passed by voice, but only after Hansard's corrected record confirms that no division was held that day — the same two-to-three-month lag as everything else.
• It's from an earlier Parliament. We currently cover the 54th Parliament (late 2023 onwards); bills whose last vote came before then aren't shown yet.

There's one more short delay: every bill gets a plain-English question and summary that a person reviews for neutrality before it goes live. If a bill has a published division and still isn't here, tell us.

What does "passed by voice" mean?

Not every vote in the House is counted. When a reading looks uncontested, the Speaker puts the question and MPs simply call out Aye or No together — the Speaker judges which side has it, and Hansard records only the result: no numbers, no party split, no names. That's a voice vote ("on the voices"). A counted division only happens when a party or MP calls for one.

• Why there's no party bar: nothing per party or per MP was ever recorded. The bar isn't missing — it never existed. Plenty of law, much of it procedural or broadly supported, passes this way at one or more readings.
• How it counts in your results: a voice-vote bill counts toward how often you aligned with this Parliament — the House still passed (or rejected) it — but it can't count toward your party match, because there are no party positions to compare your vote against.
• How we're sure it was a voice vote: we only label a reading "by voice" once Hansard's corrected record for that sitting day is published and shows no division for the bill. Until then, a recent bill simply waits — we'd rather show it late than guess.

Why can't I see how an individual MP voted?

Because, most of the time, Parliament's official record genuinely doesn't say.

• Nearly all divisions in the New Zealand Parliament are party votes: a whip casts all of a party's votes as a bloc, and Hansard records only the totals — "New Zealand National 49 votes in favour" — with no individual names.
• The exceptions where names are recorded: personal (conscience) votes, where every MP's vote is minuted by name — typically on issues like alcohol, gambling, or end-of-life law — and MPs who are recorded individually in Hansard, for example when they split from their party's bloc or cast their vote in person.
• Our rule: we will only ever show an individual MP's vote when it comes from that official named record. We could guess an MP's vote from their party's bloc, but presenting a guess as a fact is exactly what this tool exists to avoid — so when an MP-level view ships, every vote will be labelled either recorded (named in Hansard) or party-derived (inferred from the bloc), never silently mixed.

Where do the numbers come from?

Bill stages and statuses come from bills.parliament.nz, and every division — the ayes, noes and party splits — comes from the corrected record in Hansard, Parliament's official report of what happened in the House. Readings decided on the voices carry no numbers at all — we label them "passed by voice" once that same corrected record confirms no division was held. Community numbers (the "voices") come from people using this tool, shown only in aggregate: groups smaller than 20 are hidden, and individual votes are never shown. More in our privacy summary.

Spot something that looks wrong? Every bill page links to its official record — check us, and tell us if we've slipped. Being checkable is the point.