Jacinda Ardern is losing control of the narrative. That’s the conclusion to draw from recent polling, including two new polls regarding mandates and protests.
For a politician who owes her entire career to her carefully-crafted public image, this is a disaster in the making. Other leaders might weather bad polling by pointing to their achievements in office. Ardern has no such buffer to fall back on.
On every policy front, from housing to poverty, to light rail and taxation, Ardern’s record is one of constant policy failure. Her sole claim to success — “Zero covid” — has collapsed in ignominious failure.
The new polling shows that the “Team of Five Million” is rapidly abandoning her. Ardern’s approval in managing the virus has slipped by a third: from 90% positive to just 63%. As New Zealanders continue to see the world opening up while they are closed down, restricted and mandated, it will almost certainly continue to fall.
Anger towards Covid-19 restrictions has doubled in the past year while New Zealanders are divided over the Government’s red traffic light restrictions designed to slow the pace of infections and keep the health system functioning.
A new Ipsos poll, conducted online between February 4 and 11 using a sample of 1004 people, shows one in four feel the Covid-19 red traffic light restrictions are too tight while one in four want stricter rules. About 50 per cent think the rules strike the right balance between restriction and freedom.
Winning a scant half of the population might sound good, but it’s a stunning climb-down from the throne of Covid Queen of the World. More ominously, a growing number of people are not just “unhappy”, they’re angry.
The research found the number of people angry about restrictions has grown – 12 per cent of poll participants said they were angry about the restrictions on their freedom – a jump from 6 per cent of participants in February last year. The figure sat at 9 per cent during the first lockdown in 2020 […]
“This is statistically significant,” [Ipsos NZ managing director Carin Hercock] said. “People are feeling more angry. Roughly half of the group that are looking for restrictions to loosen are really angry about it. This is the largest number of people who have felt angry about restrictions since the beginning.”
At the same time, another poll blows the media-political lies about the Freedom protesters out of the water.
Contrary to the narrative about “white supremacists” and “far-right”, Curia Market Research polling shows that the protesters are disproportionately Maori, female, and drawn from Maori Party and Greens voters.
While 64.4 per cent of protesters were European, very close to its share of the population, there were almost twice as many Maori respondents compared to their share of the adult population […]
Labour and National voters were underrepresented at 29.8 per cent and 15.9 per cent. The most over-represented were the Maori Party at 3.6 per cent – three times greater supporter amongst protesters than in the 2020 election and the Greens who have twice as much at 15.9 per cent. ACT had 1.6 times as much support with 11.9 per cent.
Stuff
Interestingly, New Conservative voters are apparently out in force, at 8.7% of protesters, compared to their national polling of around 1-1.5% of voters.
The protesters are disproportionately likely to be from provincial cities, with relatively few from rural areas and Auckland.
Couple all this with a series of recent polls showing sliding support for the government and the signs are very ominous for the Ardern government.
The longer the protesters remained camped in front of the Beehive, the worse the no-win situation becomes. Their continued presence will be an enduring embarrassment for the government. Should they send the goon squad in, the resulting footage of police dragging and almost certainly beating Maori and women, in front of children, will be even worse.
No wonder Ardern has all but vanished from the media eye and started trotting out her daughter again.
