Economy chief issue for voters’ decisions

AUCKLAND: Results of a new survey show politicians depending on immigration or housing policies for votes might be barking up the wrong tree — the economy is far ahead of both as the biggest issue likely to impact on people’s voting decisions.

In the latest HeraldZBKantar TNS online survey of 1000 voters, 25% picked the economy when asked which of eight issues was most likely to affect their vote.

That was well ahead of the next issue, health, which was chosen by 16% while housing came in third at 12%.

They were followed by poverty (10%), immigration (9%), the environment (8%), education (8%) and unemployment (3%).

The economy was the top pick for both genders and across employed, selfemployed and unemployed voters although housing slightly edged out the economy among young, urban voters in their 20s.

Unsurprisingly, housing was more important to Aucklanders than other New Zealanders in the survey.

It was the second most important issue in Auckland, chosen by 18% of Aucklanders compared with 9% of those in the rest of the North Island.

A higher proportion of Aucklanders also selected immigration as a big issue than those living elsewhere.

It was a big issue to 12% of Auckland respondents compared with 9% overall.

The results indicate the election could be a battle to win voters’ back pockets, rather than policies, and come down to whether voters prefer National or Labour’s packages for incomes.

National’s enticement to voters con sists of tax cuts and boosts to Working for Families and the Accommodation Supplement.

Labour has proposed cancelling those tax cuts and instead boosting public services such as health and education, giving Working for Families a much larger boost and introducing a ‘‘baby payment’’ for parents of every newborn child.

The price of that is smaller surpluses and taking more debt in the short term.

In the survey, more men than women opted for the economy (30% to 22%) while women were more concerned about education (11% compared with just 5% of men).

The survey also revealed a significant divide between younger and older voters on the issue of housing.

More younger voters chose housing as their top issue than older voters.

In a separate survey question on house prices, 45% believed the Government should do more to make house prices fall while 34% said it had done enough to stop prices rising, or it should not be involved in the private housing market at all.

Only 11% said it had done enough and 23% said it should not be involved in the private housing market.

Young people and those on lower incomes were more likely to say the Government needed to do more to get house prices to drop than older wealthier people.

There was a divide between urban and rural. The strongest support for the Government doing more was in the cities where 52% said it should do more, compared to 42% in rural areas.

A The survey of 1000 was conducted from July 1926 and the margin of error is plus or minus 3.1%. — NZME