Poverty worries Green supporters, Maori worry Conservatives   3 Sep 2014

Poverty worries Green supporters, benefits to Maori worry Conservatives

Green voters are more worried about economic issues than National supporters, with poverty and wealth inequality considered by Green voters to be the biggest problem facing New Zealand.

Many supporters of small parties are concerned about the state of government and almost 20% of Conservative Party supporters believing “benefits given to Maori” is the biggest nationwide issue.

An analysis of voting intentions in a Roy Morgan survey of what worried New Zealanders showed poverty and wealth inequality was the biggest concern of 36.3% of Green supporters, 22.8% of Labour, 13.8% of National and 12.5% of NZ First.

National supporters were more worried about the economic/financial crisis at 12.4% compared to the general voting population of 9.8%, while 9.8% of Labour and 5.8% of Greens and NZ First rated this as the biggest issue.

Despite high levels of public debate about them, foreign ownership and “selling our assets” was cited as the biggest problem facing New Zealand by 0.6% of voters. Green supporters were the most concerned at 2.2% and 1.2% of NZ First.

43% of voters cited an economic issue as the biggest problem facing New Zealand with 48.5% of Labour, 39.6% of National, 34% of NZ First and 50% of Green supporters.

Though most of the polling by Roy Morgan on the issue was done before the impact of the “Dirty Politics” book there were signs of concerns about the state of government amongst some voters, particularly in the smaller parties, though these concerns were not necessarily about corruption.

Those citing “government/politicians/leadership/government spending” as the biggest problem facing New Zealand made up 7% of voters. Green voters were at the time one of the least concerned with 3.7% saying it was the biggest issue, Labour voters 4.6% and National 7.2%. Though the sample is small “government” was the biggest problem facing New Zealand according to 26.5% of Conservative Party supporters, 13.1% of NZ First, 18.9% of the Internet Party, 15.8% of the Mana Party and 11.4% of the Maori Party and 24.4% of Other. No ACT or United Future supporter said it was the biggest problem.

These numbers included 19.6% of Conservative party voters saying benefits given to Maori were the biggest problem facing New Zealand, compared to 1.1% of voters, while 6.7% of NZ First supporters said immigration and refugees were the issue, compared to 1.8% of all voters.

Despite high profile debate on climate change/global warming less than 1% of Labour and National supporters felt it was the most important problem facing New Zealand compared to 6.9% of Green Party supporters.

Overall the percentage of voters citing any environmental issue (including natural disasters) as the most important problem facing New Zealand was 5.7%. This was made up of 20% of Green supporters, 4.8% of National and 2% of Labour supporters.

In comparison when asked about the biggest problem facing the world, global environmental issues were the biggest problem for 23.5% of Green supporters and 11.5% of NZ First, 10% Labour and 10% and 8.2% of National

Very few worried about the state of the world economy crisis/recession rated at the greatest concern of 4.6% of National, 2% Labour and 3% of Greens.

However those worried most about worldwide poverty were 22% Labour, 13% National, 11.9% of NZ First and 17.2% of Greens.

31% of NZ First supporters were most concerned about international conflicts and war, but 23.2% of Labour, 23.1% of National and 19% of Green supporters. It is a small sample base but 86.3% of ACT supporters said this was the biggest problem in the world.

Similarly though they are small sample bases, smaller party supporters were more worried about “religion/religious conflicts” with 13.7% of ACT supporters, 27.6% of Mana and 27.5% of the Conservatives thought it was the biggest problem facing the world today

The total who feared an issue concerning terrorism/war/security facing the world were 36.7% of all voters with 42.4% of National supporters in this category, 32.6% of Labour and 24.6% of Greens. 100% of ACT supporters held similar views, 50.6% of Conservatives and 43.2% of Mana.

Link to full release from Roy Morgan.

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