The 2020 election has been moved to October 17, the Prime Minister has announced.
Jacinda Ardern said she had three options given by the Electoral Commission - retain the original date of September 19, move it four weeks to October 17 or move it to November 21.
Ms Ardern said an election needed to be based on participation of voters and ability of electoral commission to ensure all groups can participate safely, the ability to have a fair election and "certainty, and ultimately the need for an election to be held in a timely way".
"It is clear the re-emergence of Covid in Auckland.. is cause for concern," she said.
"Moving an election date… is a significant decision."
"I do not intend to change the election date again," Ms Ardern said.
There had been calls to delay the election due to the community-based Covid-19 outbreak in Auckland, which last week saw political parties halt their election campaigns.
"Covid is the world’s new normal," Ms Ardern said. "Here in New Zealand we are all working as hard as we can to make sure that our new normal disrupts our lives as little as possible."
"Moving the date by four weeks also gives all parties a fair shot to campaign and delivers New Zealanders certainty without unnecessarily long delays," Ms Ardern said.
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters called for the election to be delayed, after initially pushing for a November election.
"Common sense has prevailed," Mr Peters said.
"We were concerned that the Covid outbreak had the effect of limiting campaigns to an unacceptably short period until overseas and advance voting begin if the General Election was held on September 19."
Opposition leader Judith Collins also called for a delay in the election to November or next year.
"The democratic fairness is absolutely crucial. People who are voting should be able to have access to candidates, to policies, to be able to get that sort of scrutiny of those policies."
Green Party co-leader James Shaw said he was "incredibly disappointed to see the National and other small parties continue to use the weekend to bang on about what would suit them best politically when it comes to the Election Day date".
"Frankly, many New Zealanders would have heard loud and clear that these parties prioritise their potential electoral successes over the health of our communities, and the strength of our democratic institutions."
Yesterday a spokesperson for the Prime Minister said the Prime Minister "proactively sought the views of the leaders of every political party represented in Parliament this afternoon about the election date".
Health Minister Chris Hipkins told TVNZ1's Q+A an election could run safely under Alert Level 2.
"The Electoral Commission have planned an election based around a Level 2 scenario," Mr Hipkins said. "They could conduct an election safely with the entire country at Level 2, with all of the distancing required.
"They'd run that over a period of several weeks so everybody had the opportunity to vote and so we didn't have huge long queues."
Election timeline:
Today: Business committee meets this afternoon to agree a parliament timetable
September 6: Parliament dissolves
September 13: Writ Day, nominations close 18 September
October 3: Advance voting begins, last day for return of the writ is 12 November
October 17: Election day
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