The Green Party is promising, if elected, to require television stations to provide captions on all of their programmes.
Green MP Mojo Mathers. Photo: RNZ
It would require Television New Zealand to have 100 percent captioning by 2017, TV3 by 2020 and other broadcasters on a case-by-case basis.
Currently, about a quarter of all programmes on New Zealand television are captioned.
Green MP Mojo Mathers, who is deaf, says that compares with 85 percent in Australia and 99 percent in the United States and Britain.
Ms Mathers say it's not fair to lock out more than eight percent of the population who are deaf from information on television.
The general election is on 20 September.