New Zealand parliament dissolved for election
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern delayed the poll by a month in August as Auckand, with nearly a third of the country's 5 million population, was in lockdown.
Ardern, who became the world's youngest female leader in 2017, holds huge appeal after her response to the coronavirus pandemic and her handling of last year's shooting by a white supremacist at two mosques in Christchurch.
The most recent polls show Ardern's Labour Party has a strong lead over the conservative National Party.
