The Opportunity Party will set up a Future Generations commissioner tasked with holding governments to account for the long-term impacts of their policies and stop "short term thinking", if elected.
The party would enact a Future Generations Act giving the commissioner powers to guide the development of long-term national goals.
The commissioner would be appointed for a five-year term, and the position would have no minister and no party to direct its findings. Funding would be scrutinised through the Officers of Parliament process, not a minister.
Opportunity leader Qiulae Wong said New Zealand needed to stop making decisions based on the next election.
"Governments come and go, priorities change, and long-term plans get thrown out. We put off investments we know we need to make, only to discover that fixing the problem later costs us far more."
"We can see the consequences all around us. Young people struggling to afford a home, infrastructure that's been neglected for decades, and a health system lurching from one crisis to the next." she said.
The commissioner would also be responsible for assembling the party's proposed citizens' assemblies and other kinds of public participation in developing New Zealand's long-term goals - designed in partnership with Māori and consistent with Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
Major government policy, Budgets, and investment proposals would be required to disclose long-term costs, benefits, risks and impacts on future generations, including the cost of "doing nothing".
Wong said politicians were "very good at telling us what something will cost today" but not good at "telling us what it will cost our children if we fail to act".
She said the commissioner would not replace elected representatives, but help ensure the interests of future generations were considered in their decisions.
"Democracy shouldn't just mean having a vote every three years. People should have a real say in the future we're building together."
"And the people who will live longest with the decisions we make today deserve to have their interests represented, even if they're not yet old enough to vote, or haven't been born." Wong said.
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