KEY POINTS:
Expat Kiwi voters are to be the targets of major campaigns before this year's election, as political parties try to tap into the rising number of New Zealanders living overseas.
The National Party, in particular, is stepping up its bid to win votes from overseas, because senior figures in the party believe many of the people who have left New Zealand are likely to support John Key's team.
In the year to April, as many as 79,000 people left New Zealand permanently or long term; a big proportion of them went to Australia.
"We think the people who are going are by definition massively weighted towards the National Party," senior MP Murray McCully told the Weekend Herald.
"That is a big problem for us if we can't get them to vote."
But other parties don't agree the voters are predominantly National's and they, too, are seeking votes in England, the United States and Australia.
Labour already has a network of people in London attending New Zealand-oriented events such as concerts or sports days, where they set up a bench and encourage people to get on the electoral roll and vote.
The Greens also have representatives in England and look likely to again target Australia later in the year, as they did when the late Rod Donald visited several cities in 2005.
The Maori Party, too, is well aware of the large number of Maori voters it can chase across the Tasman. The Electoral Enrolment centre has enrolled almost 48,000 people based in other countries to vote in this year's election _ 35 per cent more than at the same time before the 2005 election.
The figure includes only those who have overseas postal addresses, and the total number of expat voters is larger when those who keep New Zealand postal addresses are included.
By far the biggest chunk of expat enrolled voters is in Australia, but England and the United States also have thousands.
Mr Key, National's leader, has asked Mr McCully to take a role in targeting the voters, and the party's president, Judy Kirk, said it was "no secret that both major parties are factoring in the overseas votes as never before".
Mr McCully said the focus at the moment for National was on getting people enrolled to vote.
He thought the number enrolled so far was just the tip of the iceberg.
"We're identifying those people both through our members and supporters in New Zealand, and through overseas vote co-ordinators who we have in most capitals now around the world that have a significant number of Kiwis."
Asked if there were any plans to send a high-profile MP overseas to campaign, Mr McCully said National was looking to tack some of that kind of activity on to visits that MPs were going to make.
National is largely using the internet and has added an "Internats" part to its website, but Mr McCully said there would be more activity overseas later in the year.
Labour's bid to pick up votes in Britain is well under way.
Jacinda Ardern, a former Young Labour president and political adviser in the Beehive, is a candidate for the party's list this year and she is making Labour visible to voters while working in London.
Ms Ardern said the number of people enrolled was small compared with the number who could be, so much of her effort was making sure people knew an election was coming and getting them talking about the issues.
Prime Minister Helen Clark visited this year and Ms Ardern said a meeting with her helped to "invigorate" people who wanted to get involved and help the Labour Party.
The Kiwis she spoke to were often focused on different issues compared with voters at home _ for instance, London-based New Zealanders talked more about the country's international reputation, foreign policy and things such as KiwiSaver.
There was also a lot of discussion about interest-free student loans, and wildly varying levels of knowledge about the election.
