One of the more illuminating theories about elections is that voting often has nowt to do with the merits or otherwise of policies.
Instead, it is emotion that determines the choices most electors make, with logic having only a bit-part role.
While this theory has been around for awhile, it was most notably promoted by an American expert on the psychology of voting, Drew Westen, in his book The Political Brain.
Westen reasoned that the political brain is not a cool calculator, carefully weighing up the pros and cons of policies that are peddled at election time. Rather, the political brain is an emotional brain, with voters’ political choices being determined by how they feel about a candidate or party, and what they stand for.
The theory goes that, for the most part, it’s fears and values that are driving voters, not rational thought. We want to know who’s on our side.
So that means that, when sizing up candidates for political office, voters are asking themselves, perhaps subconsciously, questions such as: Are they like me? Do they understand me and my circumstances? Are their values close to mine?
The symbolic gestures of parties at election time therefore become critical, as they help to provide answers to such questions.
Such an emphasis on hip-pocket issues is hardly surprising, given that October 14 is being touted as the cost-of-living election.
What was notable about the announcement of a promise to remove GST from fruit and vegetables from April 1, coupled with Working for Families changes that will boost the incomes of households with working parents and children, was the extent to which it dripped with symbolism.
The setting for Sunday’s event was a church hall, packed with Labour party faithful, in the Hutt Valley suburb of Waiwhetu, deep in the territory where Walter Nash, Labour’s last prime minister from the Hutt, served as the local MP.
The GST announcement, connecting directly with the everyday struggles of working families, was just what under-pressure Labour needed right now — notwithstanding that Grant Robertson had once said exempting fruit and veges from GST was so unworkable that it amounted to a “boondoggle”; that National’s Nicola Willis had disclosed the policy two weeks earlier after claiming to have been leaked details of it; and that economists slammed the policy for being an ineffective way of supporting equity objectives.
The families who will most appreciate cheaper, GST-free food couldn’t care less what economists think, and they’re unlikely to know or care about what a boondoggle is.
What mattered to them was the value statement behind Labour’s GST policy: times are tough and we’re on your side.
As for Willis’ outing of Labour’s plans, all she ultimately achieved was to give a politically appealing policy two rounds of media exposure, surely a favourable thing in election season.
What Labour recognises is that if they’re to win enough support to be in pole position for forming the next government, they must remind voters of what they’ve achieved, and set out what a third-term programme would look like.
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins reading to children at the Brooklyn Kindergarten in Wellington, before announcing Labour's paid parental leave policy. Photo / Mark Mitchell
“In it for you”, Labour’s campaign slogan, means demonstrating they’re on the side of constituencies they consider their core. They can point, for instance, to generous pay rises recently signed off for post-primary teachers, nurses and midwives, new arrangements aimed at closing the gender pay gap, and a promise, if re-elected, to add an additional entitlement to the paid parental leave scheme as being proof of that.
But at the same time, Labour is endeavouring to spook the electorate about what a National-Act Government might mean, and what’s at risk if that’s indeed the outcome of the election.
So talking up points of difference and demonstrating how their values differ from those of their rivals has become crucial.
This has seen Labour attacking National for wanting to cut taxes and slash spending and red tape, for that would benefit “millionaires and landlords”. And the menacing noises National is making about government support for the screen industry and the space sector show they “don’t care about New Zealand jobs”.
Chris Hipkins, meantime, contrasts this with Labour’s “proud record of supporting families”.
They say elections are won in the centre, and politicians have various labels for those who inhabit that centre ground: ordinary New Zealanders, everyday Kiwis, the squeezed middle, hard-working families, or in Mike Moore’s colourful phrase, Struggle Street.
The labels may differ, but the parties’ end goal is the same. And that is to woo those centre voters on their own emotional territory.
The battle to do that is now well and truly under way.
Mike Munro is a former chief of staff for Jacinda Ardern and was chief press secretary for Helen Clark.
