Election 2026 Policy Grid: Education, health, housing, tax – every major party policy

The Herald’s Election 2026 policy grid is an interactive comparison tool for voters. It brings major election promises together in one place instead of leaving people to search through separate party materials. The grid is organised by policy area, making it easier to compare similar proposals.

A voter can open a policy tile to read a more detailed summary of what the proposal is intended to do. The view can also be changed to show every party’s policies in one area, or only one party’s policies. Where possible, the Herald includes a party’s own wording from published election material.

This matters most in the final days of campaigning, when undecided voters may be comparing promises quickly. The grid does not include every possible party position. The Herald says it selected obvious campaign commitments and made judgments about which parties and policies to include.

The Herald included all parties that were represented in Parliament when the grid was compiled. This gives the comparison broad coverage of the parties already holding parliamentary seats. It also includes one party outside that group: the Opportunity Party.

The reason is electoral potential. The article says the Herald-Motu Research Poll of Polls indicated that the Opportunity Party stood a good chance of entering Parliament after the election. Its inclusion therefore reflects its perceived likelihood of becoming a parliamentary party, rather than its current representation.

This approach makes the grid more useful to undecided voters. They can compare established parliamentary parties alongside a possible new entrant. The selection is still an editorial judgment. The article explains that the Herald had to decide which parties belonged in the grid, so it did not claim to include every political group.

No total number of policy areas appears in the supplied article. The text says the grid sorts policies by policy area and allows users to view all parties’ policies within a particular area. It does not provide a numbered list or a stated overall count.

Education, health, housing and tax are mentioned in the question, but they are not listed in the article excerpt itself. Therefore, the exact scale of the grid cannot be calculated reliably from this source. Adding the four named areas would risk presenting an incomplete figure as the total.

The practical point is that the grid covers multiple policy subjects and can be filtered by area. Readers who need the precise number would have to consult the full interactive grid or another complete version of the Herald feature. The excerpt does not establish whether the four areas are the only ones included.

The grid gives undecided voters a structured way to compare election promises during the final days of the campaign. Instead of reading each party’s material separately, voters can find policies grouped by subject. That can make similarities, differences and gaps easier to spot.

For example, a voter interested in one policy area can change the view to see every party’s proposals on that subject. Someone assessing one party can choose a party-only view. Opening a tile provides a more detailed summary of what the policy is meant to do, while some tiles also include the party’s own published wording.

The grid is a comparison aid, not a complete record of every position. The Herald says it made judgments about which parties and policies to include. Voters therefore gain a faster starting point, but may still need to read the original party material before deciding how to interpret a promise.

A party may hold a position for years without making it a central promise in the current campaign. The Herald says it tried to include obvious campaign commitments, but not every established party position necessarily belongs in that category. This distinction helps keep the grid focused on what parties are actively campaigning on.

The editors also had to be selective in some cases because there is a large amount of policy material available. They made judgments about which policies were important enough to include. A policy could therefore be absent because it was not considered a core manifesto commitment, rather than because the party has no view on the issue.

This means the grid should be read as a curated comparison, not a complete catalogue. The Herald acknowledges those choices openly. Voters who want a party’s full position should check its published election material as well as the grid.

The clearest additional source identified in the article is each party’s published election material. Where possible, the Herald takes policy wording directly from those documents and places it below the grid’s summary. That lets voters compare the explanation with the party’s own words.

A voter can also inspect the grid’s detailed tiles. Each tile gives a fuller summary of what a policy is meant to do, while the filtering tools show either all parties in one policy area or one party across its policies. These features help readers locate relevant promises before checking original documents.

The article warns that not all policies have the party’s own wording attached yet, although more material may be uploaded. The grid is also selective. For a complete understanding, voters should treat its summaries as a guide and consult the relevant published election material where available.

An election promise is a proposed direction, not automatically a law or a funded programme. After an election, the party or parties able to form a government set priorities. They must then turn promises into specific decisions, bills, regulations or programmes, depending on what each promise requires.

Parliament is central to this process. The government can introduce legislation, but bills must pass through parliamentary debate and voting before becoming law. Spending promises also need public budgets. A budget sets out how much money the government will raise and allocate, and departments use approved funding to implement programmes.

The article focuses on comparing promises rather than explaining this process. In practice, delivery depends on election results, parliamentary support, detailed policy design, legislation where required and available funding. A promise shown in the grid therefore signals a proposed commitment, while its final form may depend on later political and budget decisions.