You will naturally get a fair bit of variance to opinions on this from us Kiwis, so rather than replying to any of the poster’s below I figured i’d just add my own two cents separately. You’re essentially asking for the vibe, not the truth - and realistically your own experience is going to be the most valuable way to determine what it is like for you.

NZ doesn’t have any out & out fascistic parties anywhere close to political power, but there are still right, and far-right political ideas prevalent in our discourse along with other pet issues that would not be misplaced amongst most other alt-right movements worldwide.

Many Pākehā will argue against this - but my contention is that from most measures NZ is a fairly racist country. Naturally, given it was a colonised country, this is particularly noticeable against Māori, but it also impacts Polynesian people, and to a lesser extent also to Asian, Latin and African peoples.

The 3 right-wing parties in / close to parliament all use dog-whistle style politics to gain support by attacking initiatives that would attempt to redress the imbalance in social outcomes - health, education, justice etc. Some parties bring out that rhetoric most loudly come election time (NZ First), but the two elected parties (National, Act) do it so casually that it sometimes gets missed how much they use it as a crutch to solidify their support base.

Many of the other pet issues for the alt-right are thankfully still fairly niche here. Though the anti-trans as a gateway to anti-LGBTQ is getting stirred up as well. A lot of extra stuff kicked off around the covid-19 pandemic, and there’s a lot of misinformation, disinformation and people peddling bulls%&t to suckers for money.

Mostly this initially comes in from foreign grifters or religious fundamentalists which is to be expected I guess, but eventually we seem to produce local versions of the same. Supporting that effort there is also a group co-opting free speech movements as a basis for importing more alt-right, far-right and fascist speech into regular discourse. That’s a complicated movement as some people involved probably are genuinely in support of free speech as an ideal, but its certain that others use it the same way all fascists do.

I think that’s a reasonable snippet of the cultural far-right politics here, but probably another thing to realise is that New Zealand has had a neo-liberal economic consensus since the mid-late 80s. This means that economically our “centre” is actually right wing. Low tax, low government intervention, small government in terms of GDP, selling off of state assets, lots of user pays style things, minimal support for those unable to work etc.

To be sure there’s loud arguments that Labour¹ are socialist commies, all about traditional big government etc, but really them and National² are economically two sides to the same coin. Particularly as neither will do anything to increase taxes on the wealthy, neither will do anything significant to address inequality, or improve housing affordability or have policies that will actually allow the country to reach pollution related targets etc.

¹ nominally centre-left, but IMHO more centre-right thanks to the left splitting off from them after the neo-liberal reforms of the 80s, eventually mostly coalescing into the Greens

² nominally centre-right, but IMHO they’re 3 parties smudged into 1, centre-right, religious fundamentalist and far-right

I live in Canada now (we have our own taste of fascism here), but have lived in NZ. It is actually quite a conservative country and the same forces that are driving far-right tendencies in Europe and North American are exerting their influence in NZ as well. The benefit over North America is they have a proportional representation system, and so governments are almost always coalitions and require across the aisle agreements. Pay attention to the rhetoric in the current election cycle (they go to the polls in about a month) and you will see how the political landscape looks, that will give you an idea of it is different from Europe in the ways that you want. Relocating to NZ long-term is not that easy, as there are quite strict immigration policies. Unless you qualify under a small category of in-demand trades or are under 30 and going on a working holiday it can be difficult to get a work visa or Permanent Residency. Also note, NZ is a bloody long way from anywhere and anything. The total country’s population is less than most European metropolitan areas and so it might be a massive shift in lifestyle (for better or worse) depending on where you come from.

Don’t even know where I’d look. What exactly are you looking for ?

We have quite a bit of gang culture here. Two main political parties are labour and national. It’s kinda difficult to compare them to other parties.

Is say national are basically the conservative party of the UK. Labour are kinda central leaning towards socialism but not really. I’m not great with politics. They mostly want to shaft you.

Seems pretty safe away from fascism but it does creep up everywhere. New Zealand has a lot to do with China. It’s main trading partner and is pretty much in bed with China. Similarly with Australia. New Zealand can’t exist without Australia and China.

That may or may not have an impact

NZ has not really had a radical right party in the same way that many European countries have had for decades. Sometimes New Zealand First is thought of as radical right, but they are generally quite centrist but very populist (and therefore have something in common with the populist right). However, they can move around the spectrum opportunistically, and have arguably been more authoritarian right in this election. The Act party seems to be moving to more of a “radical right” position, even though historically they’re economic libertarians.

There is not much sign of hard fascism, although there are definitely groups trying to promote it. They are pretty marginal, however, even though sometimes they get media attention.

I am not sure where you’re from, but I don’t see any of the main EU countries heading towards actual fascist governments in the immediate future. A few countries have definitely gone radical/far right (Hungary, Poland, Italy), but there is still a big leap from there to fascism. It doesn’t seem like there is a risk of widespread political violence in most EU countries, at least in the immediate future. In places like Hungary and Poland, there is a possible heightened risk of being targeted if you’re from a certain group (e.g. LGBT+), although there’s a risk of that in any country, including NZ. There might be a risk of more isolated political violence, but again that’s true in any country, as we experienced in NZ last year with anti-vaccine protests.

You might want to look at some of the indices that measure and compare countries on this kind of thing (e.g. https://acleddata.com/). They are not sensationalised like the media (including social media) is. Most of them show Europe is very stable and not likely to experience widespread violence anytime soon. The rise of the radical right is definitely worrying, and democratic rights may be eroded. But I wouldn’t think Europe and NZ are in a much different position there in the long run. Yes, our politics have traditionally been centrist, but that can change, and there is definitely an element that might support a radical right agenda.

I’m originally from Europe, The Netherlands, I feel it’s going much worse over there than here. E.g. over there it’s now common that high school kids have got knives on them to school. That was unheard of 10+ years ago. Even my direct family says it’s better to stay here.

I’ve noticed people here are still much friendlier & relaxed than e.g. Europe.

No country is perfect, NZ is behind in things like infrastructure, but it’s still a great place to live IMO.

We have facism and an alt-right here, but they are tiny, insignificant and basically present no physical threat whatsoever. What little violence I hear of from them is usually inter group, they tend not to hassle the general public mainly because they’d get smashed if they did. They are neither like nor respected here, and arent likely to attain any actual political power whatsoever. Violent crime and gang associated crime is an issue here though, and that will be far more of a threat to your safety here than the few far-right fuckwits we have here who are frankly regarded as a bit of a joke

I think all western countries are going the same way, just to different degrees. We’re quite far away so it takes longer for that crap to reach us but it is festering.

As others have said, more central leaning. Violence is on the rise with gang activities and rising living cost when compared to yesteryear. Insaying that, I have not witnessed any gang related activities apart from their motorcycle convoys.

This Wiki article might help.

It’s funny because the right wing people I’ve met talk about socialism and leftist politics being fascist. Left wing people talk about alt right populist movements as being fascist.

That indicates a highly functional propaganda machine is controlling narratives and sowing division.

I’m tired of the crazed notion that middle age women who oppose vaccination are somehow crypto-fascists, who are secretly working to advance the interests of the National Front and Action Zealandia. It’s a Reddit fantasy that only exists because of the echo chamber in /r/newzealand where nobody can challenge their stupid views without being banned.

There are people on Reddit who think that Carl Bromley and Lee Williams are Nazis. These are just angry old men with out-dated views, who put all their energy into venting online, or trying to start movements that just die off after 6 months.

The overton window has shifted towards anti-immigration. 2 years ago anyone who’s even slightly critical of immigration would’ve been called a fascist. But on Reddit this week, there was an anti-immigration thread that has 200+ upvotes. The person said that if we don’t stop immigration, then housing will stay expensive forever, because the government can just bring in immigrants to fill new houses and apartments. This is bad for our country and it shouldn’t matter what the tone is. Immigration just sucks and everyone knows this regardless of what they believe or who they vote for. I live in a shared house and earlier this year a whole Indian family moved in, with the screaming kid, her parents, and even the grandparents. I don’t hate these people personally, but man do they talk loud outside my door after 11pm at night. They are like the Gypsies of the South Pacific. Always having a loud conversation and bringing their family woes into the ears of other tenants, as if they owned the entire house just because they rented 2 of the rooms.

I think it’s time we realised that immigration is unsustainable. It just pisses me off at a personal level, I don’t even need an ideology or a political viewpoint to be annoyed. Nobody understands this until you have to live with a child that was spawned from another man’s cock, and the kid is banging on walls and crying right outside your stock hardware store bedroom door. It’s unbearable, and it’ll only get worse. Time to wipe off that **** eating grin New Zealand. You’ve got bigger problems than obscure political groups that mainly exist online.

There is a massively weird discourse in this country that exists on Reddit and Twitter - a big obsession with what online groups are supposedly planning. There are claims that far-right groups in NZ are preparing terrorist attacks, and that people have planned car bomb attacks (but without having a bomb or any means of making one). Then Kyle Chapman was arrested for owning a gun, but he’s not even a part of any far-right group. Some Reddit Karen will somehow connect Kyle to a group though, and claim that the Rob Gray Life Centre is a terrorist training hub. Rangi Kemara is already suggesting this online because yes he really is that stupid, just another angry liberal on the internet spouting unfounded opinions.

There is no coordinated right-wing group that is taking over political parties and changing the discourse of society, things like anti-immigration sentiment are just occurring naturally as people learn the truth.

As a redditor would say:

I am LITERALLY for open borders and ethnic restaurants (Masala Dosa, YUM!) but I am honestly against unlimited immigration of 100,000 people per year, it’s literally destroying the housing market for my whole generation!!!1