What a political compass test measures, and what it cannot
Left and right is one line. A political compass uses two, because one line cannot explain why some parties agree on tax and fight about everything else.
Two lines instead of one
Most political talk runs along a single line from left to right. That line is really about money: how much the state should tax, spend and own.
A political compass adds a second line for everything that is not about money. Questions like how tough sentencing should be, how fast the country should change, and what role Te Tiriti should play do not sort neatly into left and right.
On the NZVoteCheck chart the first line runs from a larger state to a freer market. The second runs from progressive to traditional.
How your dot gets placed
Every question in the quiz leans one way or the other on each line. A question about a wealth tax is mostly about the first line. A question about gang patches is mostly about the second. Some lean on both.
Each answer you give nudges your dot. Strong agreement moves it further than mild agreement, and a skipped question moves it nowhere.
The parties are placed by the same sum, using the positions they have published. That is the part that matters: your dot and theirs are only comparable because they were worked out the same way. The methodology page shows the sums.
Where New Zealand's parties land
On our chart the Greens sit furthest toward a larger state and ACT furthest toward a freer market. Te Pāti Māori is close to the Greens. Labour is on the same side but much nearer the middle.
National and ACT are near each other. NZ First is the interesting one: it is about as traditional as ACT on the second line, but noticeably more comfortable with state ownership and spending than either of its coalition partners.
Two corners of the chart are empty. No party in Parliament pairs a freer market with strongly progressive social views, and none pairs a larger state with strongly traditional ones. Plenty of voters sit in exactly those corners, which is one reason people often feel no party quite fits.
What a test like this cannot do
Two lines cannot hold everything. Foreign policy, how much you trust a leader, and how a party has behaved in government do not appear on the chart.
A test also only knows what a party has published. It cannot tell you which promises will survive a coalition negotiation.
And a match is not a recommendation. It tells you whose policies are closest to your answers. What you do with that is yours to decide.
The different names for the same thing
You will see tools like this called a political compass, a political spectrum test, an election quiz or a voting compass. They all do the same job: ask what you think, and compare it with what the parties say.
What differs is who built it, how the parties were scored, and how much of that you are allowed to see. NZVoteCheck is independent and shows every party position with its source before you answer anything.
It takes about five minutes to take the quiz and see where your own dot lands.
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