Someone on Reddit has asked “I’m curious as to why National has so much support” – ELI5 why people vote National:

So im reasonably new to this whole voting thing. Im curious as to why National has so much support as other parties are also promising a strong economy but are also offering a lot more in terms of social and environmental issues.

Is it that people dont care about these issues or am I missing something?

The presumption there seems to be that National doesn’t offer anything social and environmental issues, and the promise of ‘a strong economy’ from Labour, Greens and NZ First is as good as National’s promise.

A response from a provincial electorate where National is strongly supported:

Ok, so I was born in a very pro-National electorate and currently live in a very pro-National electorate. I can tell you the things I’ve heard from people.

1. I’m doing fine, so why would I look to change things?
2. Labour are too uncertain so how do we know what the consequences will be?
3. Labour will benefit Aucklanders and Wellingtonians by hurting us
4. I don’t really know much about politics, but I do know that my parents/boss/people of influence in my community are worried about the consequences of some of Labour’s plans.
5. If Labour are in government then they will be in coalition with Greens, and Greens want to destroy the industry that I am dependent on for my livelihood (dairy)
6. Labour’s policies may sound good, but how do we know that we can afford them?

I think a lot of it, at least in the provinces, comes down to people not understanding the problems we have seen under the National government. For example, the Selwyn electorate has been a National seat since 1946. Last election, National won the electorate vote with 69.97% of the vote, 20,000 votes ahead ahead of their closest competitor.

Selwyn currently has 2.3% unemployment. Do you think you see homeless people in small owns with 2.3% unemployment? Hell no, because most of those unemployed people are spouses, children or relatives of people who make significant income from primary industries whether directly or indirectly.

House prices increased by 2.4% over the last year in Selwyn. The average house price is $543,463 ($80,000 under the national average) but these aren’t just quarter acre sections, this includes lifestyle blocks and sections large enough to maintain profitable agricultural and horticultural businesses on. Do you think the fact that an apartment in Auckland costs > $800,000 registers as a problem to somebody who lives in a place where you can buy a lifestyle block for <$800,000 (source 123)?

Then, you have to remember, what Labour offers doesn’t really appeal to people. For example, many of the people who are wealthy in these places didn’t get a tertiary education. They don’t see why people need university education when they are millionaires having inherited a small sheep farm, converted it to dairy, and selling the property without ever having even gotten a trade. They don’t realise that this isn’t available to most people, and that they were lucky to be able to do this, because, honestly, everyone they know did that.

Edit: One thing that somebody said to me recently that I found interesting: “I think Bill English is a bit like Barack Obama. Like, Obama didn’t do anything amazing or different, he didn’t make much change. He just kept things going steady. Bill English will keep things going steady. But Labour want to change lots, and I don’t really know what the consequences of that change will be. So why would I take that risk?” When you don’t see the growing class divides that are largely restricted to urban centres, and only see people who are doing well, maintaining the status quo is an obvious decision. This sub talks a lot about National’s scaremongering, but where I live, discussions about homelessness and property prices and growing class divide are the scaremongering, because people haven’t directly, personally experienced those things.

A different take from nzmuzak:

I had a conversation with a work friend about this lately. He’s smart but not super political and he said “I’d like to vote labour but I don’t have any faith that they’ll be able to run the country successfully.” For him it isn’t about policy at all, because he doesn’t really care about that, he just wants a party that will be able to do what the government does with minimal fuss and he believes National does that.

I think National PR and the media have done a good job of painting every other party as ineffective, think of those rowing/running ads where it shows a coalition struggling while National succeeds. Those ads/that type of message has been incredibly successful.

Many people prefer not much change. Not many people want upheaval after every election.

Another regional perspective from Nationapartyshill:

Reasons I would vote National:

• I hate poor people
• I think flexible labour markets allow for economies to adapt to changes in market conditions and reduce long-term unemployment. And I think it’s practical for small-medium sized businesses to have a bit of flexibility to try out staff (90 day periods) without fully committing to hiring them without knowing if they’re useless. It’s pretty much impossible to fire someone in this country, and inevitably to get rid of a toxic or unreliable staff member you have to pay them out to avoid constructive dismissal action. This sucks for smaller business owners who take a punt in good faith but the worker turns out to be crap. Labour are proposing a new workforce bargaining regime which looks similar to Australia’s. I think that scheme has merits, and would probably lift wages. On the other hand, it looks like it will severely reduce flexibility or have a lot of anomalies and technicalities that will have unintended consequences. I think their policy contrasts with National’s, and there’s may increase unemployment.
• I like National’s immigration policy more than Labour’s – in the region I work in, we need more people to grow our local economy. There’s low unemployment and lots of businesses want to expand but are struggling to get workers.
• I like the work that National is doing for the most vulnerable New Zealanders — using the Integrated Data Infrastructure system to get good information about the sorts of people successive governments have put in the ‘too-hard basket’ and to change their lives for the better – while saving me money as a taxpayer. I have seen a lot of talk from Labour about helping the middle class, but not enough about the lowest 1%. These people won’t be better off because of families packages from National or Labour, or university subsidies, or adjustments to tax rates. They need a government who is demanding better public services and cross-ministry/department action to wrap services around them. Those ministries and departments will probably be better funded under Labour, but even when funding levels were good (under the last Labour government), no one was driving this type of approach. I’ve been impressed by how much change in approach Bill English has driven through the public service.
• I don’t think the answer to Auckland’s housing crisis is the government just building 5,000 houses over ten years there and a capital gains tax. I want more social housing, but National’s already doing it and they’re focused much more on Land supply and streamlining local governments’ role – I think this approach is a much better way of fixing the long term problems of under-supply.

Direct quote from a national voter:

“Because labour just gives handouts and people will leave their jobs and go back on the benefit”

Former nat voter here:

Going against this term. Most of my friends are nat voters. Few key reasons in my world:

• Stability. Probably key one. For most who are earning over median income, especially those in the housing market, National don’t shake the cage too much. So much so, even mild uncertainty is a scary thing. Things aren’t terribly broken from their position, so why risk it? To be fair, things could be a lot worse.
• Lack of decent alternative. Only recently has this changed. When Key and Little were about, Labour really weren’t an approachable option for swing voters.
• Wealth protection. It’s a sad reality of human nature that those that have it, don’t want to give any of it up. Many, rightfully so. Even if they understand the possible unfairness and social problem found in residential capital gains. This one especially, I think most people would have a second think on the instant they bought an investment property.

It’s no mistake that most high income voters go for National.

There are many more than just high income earners amongst 40-50% voters.

My parents when I asked:

“Labour wants to tax capital gain on our properties.”

StaffroomFruit:

I think labour have the wrong go about for fixing problems.

I very strongly disagree with their free tertiary program. It will waste a lot of money, negatively impact current and future students due to increased enrolment of people who fairly shouldn’t enrol but no longer have a deterrent. Making the last year free would.be a significantly better step. Or they could keep the interest free, non inflation adjusted loans.and use the money to fix up living costs. The tertiary policy here is just the one people want to hear for votes, not the beneficial one at all.

The build more homes to fix the housing crisis has severe negative economic effects that aren’t addressed by their policy. Actively devaluing property is a very big deal, especially for people who are going to be paying off 35% more than what their home is actually worth before lending fees and interest.

Labour make out that there’s this black and white divide between the poor and the rich.

Labours cannabis stance is too open, i prefer the medicsl, inspected view of the blues.

I dont really think the nats are doing anything particularly amazing, but i don’t like labours policies.

If we talk just about leaders, despite this being not the US; Jacinda had this rather annoying showman thing going on. When discussing the budget hole,.which is it’s own can of worms, she just reiterates that it’s about “trust, bill” and gets cheers, there the i don’t need thirty seconds for weed while bill explains exactly what they want to happen. She comes across as shallow and not particularly well explained, we know that’s not true.. she has a long parliamentary history and we shouldn’t discount either leaders intelligence, but as far as the debates go, bill is the one in get behind.

There are still a number of voters who never change their preferred party (probably no more than about 20% for both National and Labour, and possibly quite a bit less).

My dad is a staunch National supporter from way back. His reasons are twofold: firstly economic – he doesn’t believe what he earns should be taken and redistributed, and secondly a moral reason – he believes National as a party are upright and on the money with their ethics.

I love my dad, and there’s no convincing him otherwise. He’ll be voting blue for the rest of his life.

Corrugata is shifting to Labour but with a warning:

I’ll explain why I voted for them in 2008. Pure self interest, I earned a few hundred dollars per month more when the top tax rate dropped to 33%, at a time when I was financially in a bad place.

In 2011, Labour was a shambles, so National it was again.

In 2014, we were really struggling to get into the housing market, and National didn’t give a shit, so over to Labour we went.

This year, National hasn’t really done anything much since 2014, that would change the fact that life really sucks for a significant part of NZ still.

I’ve “got mine” now, so technically it’s in my interest to vote for the status quo, but it should be possible for others to achieve the same if they work hard, I don’t see that happening under current National who are stuck in the past a bit at the moment.

I also support shifting the spending around a bit to favour education and healthcare. I don’t think they’ll spend like drunken sailors, I lived through three terms of Aunty Helen and they handed National a surplus, how irresponsible of them.

But in no way does this mean Labour have a lock on my vote.

I just consider them least bad.

Negatives about Labour are the fact that you run the chance of getting Greens and their wonky anti-science nutters. And one way to guarantee me switching back to National is to touch income tax to revise it up. CGT I’m fine with, and I think their stance on immigration, to slow it down a bit, needs doing.

Let’s see if they keep their 2021 promise. If not, this will be be a blue household again for a long time.

It’s common to see people sounding surprised that others would consider voting for a party they don’t like, but the reality there are many voters with quite different views and preferences.