Methods
How we check the official numbers
CivicNZ is the public desk. CivicIQ operates the API. Sign-off is "the CivicIQ team". We are independent and not affiliated with any government agency or party.
Official sources only
Every figure carries a source, a release date and a fetch date. If something is not published, we say "Not published" and never estimate it quietly.
Verdicts
Better / Worse / Flat / Insufficient uses one published trend rule: official significance and confidence intervals first, then a like-for-like year-on-year change, then Theil–Sen only when there are four or more official points spanning two years. Verdicts are never set against a party's claims. A verdict is always colour + glyph + word.
Same rules, every party
Party identifiers in charts are a neutral grey with the party name as text. Association is never presented as causation.
Corrections
We publish a dated public log when a live figure, verdict or method was wrong.