New Zealand voted in a new government as fog choked the capital, Wellington, on Saturday - and the mood was as palpable as the grey weather.

"It's pretty flat," 21-year-old Imogen Vlutger says. "There's this kind of apathy and a bit of dread."

"Tired. I think we're all tired," Symone, 28, admits.

"I didn't even vote," one man in his 40s sheepishly confesses. He couldn't bring himself to tick any of the boxes, he explains, declining to chat further.

"Wellington's a bit of a bubble," another voter says, expressing a caveat I heard often, before describing feeling disillusioned.

But polling shows this is a pervasive sentiment across the country: the national mood is low and faith in politics is even lower.

More than half the country no longer sees it as a land of opportunity, a recent study found, while a similar portion fears that the future looks even worse.

Many Kiwis feel the economy is in ruins, there are no jobs, the cost of living has become sky high, the sense of community that used to be a…