On 1 August, New Zealand Labour Party leader Andrew Little resigned after the opposition hit a catastrophic low of 24 per cent support in an opinion poll ahead of the 23 September election. He handed over to his deputy, Jacinda Ardern, then aged 36.

A sharp, informal communicator described by some as a ¡°rock star politician¡± in the vein of Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, Ms Ardern has since won Labour a surge of support, predictably termed ¡°Jacindamania¡± by the media.

One of her key policies is a pledge to abolish tuition fees and increase living cost support for students.

Labour support rose to 44 per cent in a , four points ahead of the centre-right National Party, which has been in power since 2008 and might have expected that its portrayal of a strong economic record would guarantee further electoral success.

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Developments in New Zealand fit within an emerging trend, evident in the UK and US, for politicians on the left and centre-left to see opposition to tuition fees as a way to mobilise support among younger voters. In New Zealand, Labour has the chance to be a pioneer among national governments in the developed world by abolishing fees: in Germany, it was individual state governments that made such a change.

¡°If you¡¯d asked me a month ago whether education was going to be a key, election-deciding platform, I would have said never in a hundred years,¡± said Chris Whelan, executive director of Universities New Zealand, which represents the nation¡¯s eight universities.

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Average tuition fees at New Zealand universities are about NZ$6,000 (?3,245) a year, under tiered fee caps that vary across subjects. The cost of education is split roughly 60:40 between direct public funding and the tuition fees repaid by graduates, said Mr Whelan.

Graduates¡¯ repayments on government-backed, income-contingent loans start once salaries reach NZ$19,084 and are deducted at 12 per cent above that level.

The terms, more onerous than England¡¯s student loans, are one explanation for concern on the issue, with one academic researcher warning that graduate debt is weighing down some and .

Another key issue is New Zealand¡¯s spiral in property prices and thus rents, meaning student living cost support cannot cover accommodation in cities.

In late August, Ms Ardern announced that Labour would bring forward by a year its existing plan to phase in free tertiary education. Students starting courses in 2018 would receive one year of fee-free study, gradually extended to three years by 2024.

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Living cost assistance would also be boosted by NZ$50 a week under Labour¡¯s new plan, taking both the means-tested maintenance grant and universal maintenance loan to about NZ$220 a week. The new plan would add an extra NZ$2 billion to public spending by 2022.

Anticipating claims of a ¡°cynical¡± policy seeking support from young voters, ?that it was ¡°unreasonable for us to expect that those who are furthering themselves for all of our benefit should have to live on NZ$170 a week¡±.

So, what is Universities New Zealand¡¯s stance on Labour¡¯s policy? ¡°Our position is that anything that lifts participation in higher education has got to be good,¡± said Mr Whelan.?Although, given that 38 per cent of New Zealanders currently enter university within five years of leaving school, ¡°we are not sure how many more students there are out there who are not going to university for some reason that [Labour¡¯s] policy might actually bring through,¡± he added.

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Richard Shaw, professor in politics at Massey University, said that the pledge to end fees was part of Labour¡¯s ¡°wider slew of policies aimed at appealing to younger people's presumed sensitivities¡±.

¡°The whole idea was they [Labour] brought [the policy] well forward because of these missing 200,000 voters,¡± said Mr Whelan, noting the figure in circulation for numbers of eligible voters not registered.

But Professor Shaw said that rates of voter registration among young voters ¡°don¡¯t look promising¡± thus far. So, he added, ¡°we really don¡¯t have the preconditions for a ¡®youthquake¡¯ ¨¤ la the UK¡± in its general election this year, when young voters backed Jeremy Corbyn ¨C who pledged to abolish fees in England ¨C in unexpected numbers.

Taking a different view to Mr Whelan, Professor Shaw said that New Zealand Labour¡¯s tuition fees pledge has ¡°been a sort of second-tier issue¡± in the campaign ¡°and it certainly hasn't shifted public sentiment the way that the removal of interest on [student] loans did a decade ago¡±. That move was credited with helping Labour unexpectedly hang on to power in the 2005 election.

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But, if the polls are reliable, Ms Ardern and New Zealand Labour are still in with a shot of turning their vision of fee-free university education into reality.

john.morgan@timeshighereducation.com