The FOOT vowel appears to be undergoing a dramatic diachronic change which leaves it with two very different variants, distinguished at the moment in terms of their lexical occurrence. The conservative value is a centralized back slightly rounded vowel, [ʊ] , while the innovative value is much more a central vowel and unrounded. The innovative value is particularly common in the word good. It is long established in the greeting good day (frequently written as <gidday>), but has spread into other uses of the word good. Although there is danger of overlap with the KIT vowel, this does not appear to be happening, and accordingly we choose to transcribe this variant as [ɨ].

The FOOT vowel is neutralized with several other vowels before /l/. FOOT and GOOSE are neutralized before /l/ in words like full and fool. Here the vocalization of the /l/ makes it disappear entirely, and we are left with a long back rounded vowel, [u:]. There is also neutralization with KIT before /l/ in pairs like fill and full. If all three are not neutralized together, the outcome here may be a back rounded vowel, not as long as that for fool. This neutralization does not occur before onset- /l/.

If vowels are to be paired in terms of length/tension, then in New Zealand English the FOOT vowel should be paired with the THOUGHT vowel, with which it is sometimes virtually identical in terms of formant structure, so that put and port may differ only in vowel length.