Five Million Voices (fivemillionvoices.nz)
First off, I'd like to thank Mountain Tui and the Mods for allowing this post. Thank you not only for this post but for all that you do team.
I started building this because of a simple question I couldn't answer: do our politicians actually vote the way they promised they would?
Turns out that's surprisingly hard to check. Most votes in our Parliament are party votes — no individual MP records, just bloc totals buried in Hansard. So I built a site that digs out every vote, turns every bill into a plain-English question, and asks you: how would YOU vote?
You swipe support or oppose, then see how the House actually voted — party by party, every figure traced to the official record. No spin, no party line, and you don't need an account.
But somewhere along the way the project turned into something more meaningful. Two things did that.
First: not every bill gets public consultation. The select committee stage — where experts and ordinary people like you and me can make submissions — can be skipped entirely when bills are passed under urgency, and this term has set records for it. For those bills there's no official moment where you get a say. You find out when it's already law.
Second: while building it, I kept hearing the same thing from people in the public service — *"*I'd never put my name on a submission. It could end my career." So I built this so you don't have to. No name, ever. Vote without an account if you like, and even with an account we never ask who you are. Results only ever appear in aggregate.
So that's what it's really for now: not just checking what they did, but telling them what we want while a bill is still being considered — while they can still hear us.
The dream is that one day a journalist looks across the desk at a minister and asks: "Why are you pushing this bill when two million New Zealanders have said they oppose it?"
That question only becomes possible if the count exists. Right now it's tiny. That's why I'm posting.
If you've got 30 seconds: vote on one bill in an area you care about → https://fivemillionvoices.nz — no account, no signup, no name.
If you've got 45 seconds: share a bill with a friend. Every voice makes the count harder to ignore — and once there are enough of us, they're accountable to us on every bill.
If you've got 2 minutes: make an account so your vote lands in the verified one-person-one-vote count — that's the number that can't be waved away. Still no name.
If you want to stay in the loop: sign up for the weekly email on the topics that matter to you. Teacher? Follow education. Conservationist? Follow the environment. Nurse or doctor? Follow health. One email a week when bills in your world move — before they pass, not after. We'll even tell you when a bill has gathered enough voices to unlock its results.
If you've got opinions: I built this solo and I want it pulled apart. Every number links to its source in the official record — check me, and tell me what's wrong or missing (here in the comments, or feedback@fivemillionvoices.nz).