‘Moronic’ Trump, ‘pingers’ at festivals and scrapping TOP: Beers and banter with Opportunity’s Qiulae Wong

Thursday, 19 March 2026

Lloyd Burr sits down for a beer and banter with Opportunity leader Qiulae Wong. She thinks Trump’s ‘moronic’, Luxon’s a fish out of water and drugs should be allowed at festivals. Could she work with Winston “two Wongs don’t make a white” Peters?

New Zealand has never had a new party enter Parliament solely via the 5% party vote threshold. ACT, NZ First and the Greens first entered by winning seats, although over subsequent elections, the latter two have mostly got in via the threshold.

It’s bonkers isn’t it that under MMP, there hasn’t been a completely new party come into the political fray that hasn’t been built on someone quitting a party and starting a new one by leveraging off an electorate seat.

Colin Craig’s Conservatives came close in 2014 with 3.97%. Some argue they would have made it without the scandal involving allegations made by Craig’s press secretary.

The only other close contender has been The Opportunities Party (TOP) which got 2.4% in 2017, 1.5% in 2020, and 2.2% in 2023.

Since its most recent loss, the party’s been through a significant rebuild, which included advertising for a new leader on most job-seeker platforms and putting the top four candidates through a Hunger Games-esque interview process.

The winner of that was Qiulae Wong (pronunciation Queue-Lay), who wants to be known simply as ‘Q’. The party’s name has been changed to the Opportunity Party.

While she’s done the media rounds since being chosen as leader, she hasn’t done an informal chat over a beer in a pub. So Stuff decided to put that right.

Here are some of the main points - but for some more interesting nuggets, we recommend watching the whole video (which you’ll find further down).

On why it’s not ‘TOP’ anymore

‘TOP’ is short, snappy and great to fit in a news headline without having to write out the whole thing.

But that word is now pretty much banned. The party’s press releases come with this request (or demand): “NB: The Opportunity Party should be formally referred to as ‘Opportunity’ or ‘the Opportunity Party.’”

What’s up with that, I ask Wong?

“I know it's got good brand equity with people that have followed the party for a while, but actually we did some research and TOP doesn't resonate for lots of people who have no idea who we are - and that's actually the majority of people,” she explains.

“So we figured if we're gonna start afresh, build our brand awareness, we wanted to emphasise what the party is actually about. So ‘Opportunity’ actually explains what the party is.”

Why’d they ditch the plural ‘Opportunities’ for the singular ‘Opportunity’?

“Right now, right here, we need to shift our politics. That is the singular opportunity that we are [chasing],” she says. “It's about opportunity for you, opportunity for nature, opportunity for our grandkids.”

Why on Earth does she want to go into politics?

Parliament and politics is an intense, high-pressure, high-stakes game with big personalities. It’s ripe for clashes between allies and enemies alike, and ripe for toxicity to spread like wildfire.

It’s tough. Tough on your mental health, on families, on your body. So why does she want to work in a place like that?

“Because I want it not to be like that. And as long as it's like that in New Zealand, that's the culture that it will create for my kids and my grandkids,” she says.

“If you want to make the norm delivering a positive impact for people, government has to lead the way on that and they have to set the right signals.”

Is her party playing too nicely? Is it too ‘holier than thou’?

Given the party’s never been in Parliament and never played the game of politics, are they going into it playing too nicely or too idealistically?

“We'll be combative when we need to be. We've taken a few shots early at a few people for behaviour that we don't agree with, but I believe that there is a large portion of New Zealanders that are really sick of the state of politics at the moment, of the unnecessary division,” Wong says.

“We're always going to have a debate of ideas, that's great. Of course politics needs to be about lots of different viewpoints and people disagreeing with each other, but I feel like it's getting pretty personal.

“It's getting really culture war-ey. We're going down the American-style politics, and that's what we believe we need to steer away from,” she says.

Opportunity’s general manager is former Labour MP Iain Lees-Galloway and Wong’s personal mentor is former National MP Jackie Blue. Does that mean the same old politicians are pulling the strings behind the scenes?

“They're not calling the shots. They're there to provide some advice and guidance,” she says.

“It's really important for us to have a little bit of that experience and wisdom on the team, otherwise we will be going into this totally naive and probably fall into a bunch of traps that would have us fail.”

Where does Opportunity sit politically?

It’s a fair question given the number of iterations the party’s had and the number of policies it’s adopted or ditched over the years: Is it a little bit lost on where it sits on the spectrum?

“We are both socially liberal and we believe in market economics. That kind of represents a bit of the left and a bit of the right,” she says, as I sit there with a flummoxed look on my face.

“I don't really like saying centrist because then you're sort of reinforcing the idea that we have this left-right spectrum, which I don't think is really true any more. We sort of, you know, we take a bit of the best of everywhere,” she says.

Ok. So that could mean anything. It could be the recipe for the best cake in the world, or it could be the poo colour you get when you mix all the paints together. Anyway, I let her elaborate.

“We believe that every New Zealander should have the opportunity to work hard and turn that into success. That means they need to have a good social floor,” she says.

“They need some social security, but they also need an economy that's gonna give them the chance to make something of themselves if they want to.”

When I point out that that sounds like something National’s Nicola Willis would say, she explains it differently using a rugby metaphor: ACT, NZ First, and National think there should be no referee in the rugby game, aka free market economics.

“We've been there, done that. It doesn’t work,” she says.

What makes her tick?

“Doing anything to do with music, design, arts is kind of my outlet and meditation,” she says.

“I've always been quite a creative. I wanted to be a fashion designer when I was younger. I went to work in fashion but in the sustainability side so that's kind of how I realised my dream on that,” she says.

“I lived in London for nine years and had a baby at the end of that, so that sort of changed my lifestyle. My husband and I look back fondly on the times we had there.

“Festivals, hanging out with friends - didn't make that many British friends and mostly just hung out with a group of about 40 Kiwis - worked hard and had a great time. Did a lot of travel.”

Wong’s been to the Glastonbury music festival three times (2015, 2016, 2017). “If I could leave the kids behind for like a week or two, I think we would love to go to Glastonbury one more time.”

Yes or no to recreational drug reform? ‘Pingers’ at festivals? “We believe in drug reform so, yes.”

On Donald Trump

“I hate to use the word ‘hate’, but I can't see any redeeming features,” she says.

Do you think he’s a moron? “Yea, I do,” Wong responds.

What about Luxon?

“Just a total fish out of water. Maybe he was a good CEO - I didn't really have anything to do with him - but people say he was a good CEO, but maybe that just doesn't make a good politician,” she says.

Is he a good prime minister? A good leader? “Obviously he struggles with the communication thing with the media,” she starts by saying.

“I can see, having been in this role for a couple of months, how you feel a lot of pressure to say the right thing, that I can understand how you almost just don't want to say anything, which is kind of what he does.

“He sort of bumbles through questions without answering anything,” Wong says.

Could she work with Winston “two Wongs don’t make a white” Peters?

During the 2014 election campaign, Peters was addressing the issue of foreign buyers during a party rally when he said “two Wongs don’t make a white”.

Could you work with someone who uses that kind of language in an election campaign, I ask her? She replies: “I think it's gonna be pretty hard.

“We do say we will sit down at the table and try and find common ground with anyone in a coalition negotiation if that's the position we're in.

“But I have to say New Zealand First would be the hardest party to find that common ground with, not just because there's policies we don't agree with - and there's some that we do - but it's the lack of integrity,” Wong says.

“It's the use of identity politics to divide people so it would be pretty hard to trust someone like that.”

Given she’s part-Chinese with a Chinese name, is she worried NZ First could use that against her? “Yeah, potentially,” Wong replies.

David Seymour, yes or no?

“Not a fan. He went on Dancing with the Stars so he can obviously have a laugh at himself.”

Is 2023 the perfect year for Opportunity given the state of the other parties?

With the leaders of both Labour and National battling in the polls, could this be Opportunity’s year? Wong’s under no illusions that some think so.

“I feel a lot of pressure because it feels like the time has never been more right for a party like ours. There is a lot of expectation on us,” she says.

“We have a good strategy and we are on a good track. We've never been in such a good position seven months out from an election with our member numbers, our polling numbers, our fundraising numbers, besides Gareth Morgan's $2.5m or whatever he put in,” she laughs.

“We've never had this much momentum this early. We've got a good base. It's gonna take a lot more grind, but I do think we're on the right track,” Wong says.