The Opportunities Party
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The Opportunities Party
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| Abbreviation | TOP |
| Leader | Gareth Morgan |
| Founder | Gareth Morgan |
| Founded | 4 November 2016 |
| Headquarters | 267 Wakefield St, Wellington |
| Ideology | |
| Political position | Centre |
| House of Representatives |
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| Website | |
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The Opportunities Party (TOP) is a registered political party in New Zealand. It was founded by philanthropist Gareth Morgan in November 2016. The party supports "a prosperous, fair and equitable society", environmental sustainability, and the adoption of a written constitution.
Gareth Morgan launched the party on 4 November 2016. On 10 January 2017 the party announced that it had 2000 members and was applying for registration. It also announced that it was considering standing electorate candidates. The Electoral Commission posted notice of the registration application on 21 January.
Morgan spoke at the annual Rātana commemorations in January 2017, during which he criticised New Zealand First and its leader Winston Peters, saying that Peters was "an Uncle Tom" whose party was "selling Maori down the river". Peters, who also spoke at the event, responded by calling Morgan a "thinned down version of Kim Dotcom".
The party announced that party chief of staff Geoff Simmons would contest the 2017 Mount Albert by-election. The party was criticised by the ACT party for offering free rides for Mount Albert voters, which they asserted breached the Electoral Act. However, the Electoral Commission cleared TOP of any wrongdoing. Simmons received 600 votes, or 4.6% of the vote, placing him third.
The party was registered by the electoral commission on 6 March 2017.
Between January and March 2017, TOP released policy statements in seven areas. Policies include:
The party has used as a logo a variant of the Wā kāinga / Home flag. In a November 2016 blog post, Gareth Morgan noted it had won the Morgan Foundation's flag competition in 2016 and that it symbolised "the transition we currently have underway in Aotearoa". The creators of the Red Peak flag criticised the party for using a logo similar to their flag without discussing it with them. The party attempted to register this as their logo in January 2017 at the same time as the party, but the logo was not. Later, in April 2017, TOP sought to register a different logo. This logo is the letters TOP in black, red, and blue respectively. As of April 2017[update], the party's website still uses the Wā kāinga / Home flag logo.
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