'Flat', 'tired', 'cynical': Unusually gloomy Kiwis deliver New Zealand's tightest election in years

New Zealand voted in a new government as fog choked the capital, Wellington, on Saturday - and the mood was as palpable as the grey weather.

"It's pretty flat," 21-year-old Imogen Vlutger says. "There's this kind of apathy and a bit of dread."

"Tired. I think we're all tired," Symone, 28, admits.

"I didn't even vote," one man in his 40s sheepishly confesses. He couldn't bring himself to tick any of the boxes, he explains, declining to chat further.

"Wellington's a bit of a bubble," another voter says, expressing a caveat I heard often, before describing feeling disillusioned.

But polling shows this is a pervasive sentiment across the country: the national mood is low and faith in politics is even lower.

More than half the country no longer sees it as a land of opportunity, a recent study found, while a similar portion fears that the future looks even worse.

Many Kiwis feel the economy is in ruins, there are no jobs, the cost of living has become sky high, the sense of community that used to be a source of national pride is breaking down and there's no sense of genuine progress on policy solutions.

A record number of them are abandoning ship in search of brighter futures elsewhere.

Saturday's election also saw a record number of voters desert the two major parties, giving neither a clear mandate.

But it brought new highs for parties across the spectrum: the left-leaning Greens, the right-wing libertarian Act Party and the centrist Opportunity Party – the latter of which had never won a seat in parliament before but could now hold the balance of power with seven.

"You have voted to change New Zealand politics for good," the party's ecstatic leader Quilae Wong told Kiwis on election night. "I personally came into this because I was frustrated at the slow pace of change."

It will likely be weeks before we know exactly who will make up the governing coalition and what deals have been made to form it.

But this is only the first of many challenges facing whoever is the next prime minister of a country at a crossroads.

New Zealand hasn't always felt like this.

For a long time, the country was viewed as a land of milk and honey – literally – for those who worked hard, with its people ranking amongst the most positive in the world.

A satisfying career, access to quality healthcare, and a close network of family and friends – which research suggests are the three most important building blocks of a happy life – were all there for the taking, University of Auckland Prof Robert MacCulloch says.

"The lifestyle was good," the world-leader in the study of happiness economics tells the BBC. "You weren't the highest paid, but you could get by nicely."

Many who spoke to the BBC said the country's decline accelerated into a dive during the Covid pandemic.

Unemployment is now at an 11-year high and rising. For Kiwis aged under 24, things haven't been this bad in three decades: jobs are so scarce that one in three either cannot get enough work or have none at all.

Michael Dawson says he did everything he thought he was supposed to: finished school, studied a trade and obtained a qualification, and has applied for dozens of jobs.

But it's been a year now and the job market is so dire he hasn't had a single interview.

"It has sucked. A lot... I'm somewhat cynical with the way I think [about the future] now," the 20-year-old says.

Zainab Ali, chief executive of support service Youth Inspire, has never seen demand so high, with waitlists for its employment aid workshops stretching into the hundreds.

The young people who do make it through their doors on the outskirts of Wellington are disheartened.

"The things we used to hear from everyone's grumpy uncle around the Christmas table sometimes, our young people are now starting to give us that same feedback: like, 'What's the point?'"

Meanwhile, household electricity bills have jumped drastically, partly driven by global supply shocks. New Zealand remains one of the least affordable places on Earth to rent or buy a home. High inflation means every dollar is having to stretch further.

The island nation produces enough food to feed its population eight times over, but about a quarter of adults are skipping meals because the price of groceries – set by a supermarket duopoly – is among the highest in the developed world.

And the headlines are full of healthcare crises: long waiting lists, chronic understaffing, crumbling health infrastructure and climbing costs for patients. Few stories have captured the state of the system like the death of a man who collapsed in an emergency department toilet after a nine-hour wait in July.