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The points I outlined in my last article regarding the National Party’s poor poll numbers appear to have been borne out in the latest Taxpayers Union/Curia poll released on Tuesday. National has once again failed to crack the 30 per cent mark. Admittedly the 29.8 per cent number (up 1.4 per cent from the previous TPU/Curia poll) is up from the 26.5 per cent in last week’s Roy Morgan poll. However the inescapable fact is these numbers reflect poorly on the senior party in a government coalition. While not wishing to regurgitate the points made in Tuesday’s article, they are nonetheless relevant to this poll. National definitely needs a rethink in terms of the direction of its future travel.
National and its parliamentary leadership team (Luxon, Willis and Bishop) appear to want to play a game that appears both dangerous and dumb. They have put the party on a course which, to a large extent, has alienated their voter base. Their apparent obsession on applying politically correct and woke policies to issues such as climate and race are damaging the party’s popularity with right-wing voters. This is what’s causing their low poll numbers and not recognising this is reflective of an ostrich-type head in the sand attitude.
The party leadership either doesn’t realise what the problem is or does recognise it, but won’t change because they think they can bring the voters around to their way of thinking. Either way it leaves the party looking out of touch with the electorate as a whole. Right-wing voters simply will not buy into any sort of politically correct or woke behaviour. Voters in these demographics don’t identify with the lily-livid behaviour of the generation Luxon, Willis and Bishop come from.
They are looking for politicians who will create and preside over a society where:
*everyone is treated equally
*race doesn’t play a role in everyday life,
*taxpayers money is not wasted on nonsense policies like the Paris Accords and placating the Māori elite
*race factors are not written into every piece of legislation
*personal responsibility is expected
*bloated bureaucracy is minimised
*energy policies are implemented and strongly backed
*welfare is more rigidly applied
*free speech is treated as a God-given right
*a sense of patriotism is encouraged
National is failing to a greater or lesser degree on all of these.
These are the areas where I think National is succeeding:
*Agriculture
*Trade
*Foreign Affairs
*Infrastructure projects
*Long-term planning
*Education
*Defence spending
*Childcare
*Law and Order
And these are areas where I think National is on the right path:
*Housing
*Health
*Energy
This leads to the poll’s other conclusions. NZ First is continuing its meteoric rise, up 3.9 per cent to 13.6 per cent and ACT up 1.5 per cent to nine per cent. NZ First’s rise is of most interest. This reflects a global increase in popularity for parties which have an agenda whereby they promote policies that put the country first and thus create a sense of patriotism. They are promoting a society run along established traditional lines. After doses of political correct wokery from the left, the majority of voters are seeking a return to a sense of normalcy. This is what National need to recognise and start legislating for.
Notably, the poll has Winston at 12.1 per cent in the preferred Prime Minister stakes.
What this poll shows is that instead of National offering policies that support the voters and their coalition partners, it is in fact the other way around. The voters are finding the minor parties in the coalition and their policies more attractive and we now have them as the main enablers when it comes to National forming a government. If this continues through to election day, Mr Luxon will need all of his CEO skills to cope with the hard bargaining that will come from both ACT and NZ First.
It would be in his and National’s interest to regain the ascendancy that National should never have lost. In order for this to happen, the excessive political correctness and wokery will have to be dispensed with and a much harder line taken on matters of race and climate, plus, dare I say it, economic policy. These issues need to be addressed post haste. Nothing less will satisfy the voter base. Here’s the scary thing: time is running out.
