A left-leaning, rural tradie: tax, gender identity, and conversations with Act voters

How are you feeling about New Zealand politics?

I mostly feel like I’m waiting for more information. At this stage, a lot of the policy pages on political party websites haven’t been updated yet, so it’s an odd sort of limbo at the moment. I was quite disappointed by the Michael Wood’s saga, both because of the corruption itself but also because it’s a distraction from debating the real issues.

Who would you vote for if the election was held tomorrow?

It’s too early to say for sure, but I’m leaning in three directions. I have a history of voting for Greens and the Maori Party, so they are at the top of my list in terms of looking at their policies as they are released. The Greens have just released their tax policy and I’m finding that interesting and I think very clever. I don’t know much about what the Maori party are thinking currently. Probably about 60 percent of my support for them is driven by my commitment to the Treaty of Waitangi as a foundational document and my vision for a New Zealand grounded in shared governance. The political representation of Maori is very important to me. But the remaining 40 percent of my support is about their particular policies. They have had some really great policies that are trying to tackle justice issues for all New Zealanders, plus some policies that are particularly good for Maori. The third party is TOP, which also has some interesting policies. Apart from the Greens, they are the only party thinking about comprehensive tax reform. They are also talking a lot about AI and the future of tech. They seem to have an approach to policy which is future-oriented, rather than just looking at the next election cycle. They are also trying to be evidence-based rather than ideological. They are trying not to fall into the classic left-right tropes, and I think that’s healthy.

Of the main parties, who would you be the least likely to vote for?

It would be the Act Party, probably. They are too laissez-faire in their approach to economics, and also to justice and morality issues. I don’t think the Government should control people’s lives. But when you consider issues like assisted suicide—for them it’s a freedom issue but for me it’s a moral issue. Our stances will differ there too.

What do you think motivates Act voters?

I can only speak about my context and the voters I know. I’m a tradie living in a rural party of New Zealand, so this is a historically a strongly right-leaning crowd. I work with a lot of Act voters, and I can empathise with their struggles and views. I think some of the people I work with at the moment are heavily influenced by alternative facts about the covid vaccine and the covid response. At the root of this is the fear of Government control: they want as little Government interference as possible. A second factor is that I think a lot of these Act voters have a desire for things to be straightforward. One guy at work was saying that he didn’t understand the Green’s tax policy: why not just get everybody to pay the same proportion of their wealth, and keep things simple. Then everyone is treated the same. They see in David Seymour a straight talker or straight shooter: he keeps things very simple, but I think he takes a lot of the nuance away. A third motivation would be traditional family values. There’s this feeling that the world is changing—heck, people can even choose their own genders now! Ironically, Act would probably be fine with all that, because of their laissez-faire attitude to social issues. But still, I think for these colleagues Act seems to represent a set of values that is more familiar because they would have been more familiar a generation ago.

How do you think these colleagues would perceive you and your political views?

In general, I think they see me as too ‘nice’. And also that I’m overcomplicating things: trying to do everything for everybody. But I think there’s also respect for the fact I’m a fairly young person that’s taking a stand on issues I care about, someone that’s engaged. They might also perceive me as a little too self-assured and set in my ways. For these reasons, it’s hard sometimes to talk across party lines.

Tell me more about that: how is it hard, and what can we do to improve our political discussions?

People are getting more entrenched into their sides of the aisle, I think. National has some pretty solid leadership in Luxon, but Act is still taking a percentage away from National. Labour is pretty strong for now, but I think the Greens will increasingly grow as younger generations come through. So we are moving more to the sides and I think it’s very difficult for people on these farther ends to find any real middle ground when discussing political issues. We were talking about human sexuality and gender identity at work recently. I don’t know where I sit on some of those issues myself, but I was at least trying to explain to the guys why people might see this differently. Their conception of gender is binary. I was trying to explain that the starting point for other people is that gender is fluid and, from that starting point, you can end up with lots of different options in terms of gender and sexuality. But the guys couldn’t comprehend that people might think that way. This is a real challenge. Rather than people meeting more in the middle and learning to understand each other, I think people are moving further and further apart.