Editorial: The importance of paying attention and voting

National deputy leader Nicola Willis and leader Christopher Luxon. Photo / Mark Mitchell

The strange state of Auckland local body politics is a warning ahead of a more important election in October.

Wayne Brown is Auckland’s maverick mayor primarily because not enough people could be bothered to vote or take the local government election seriously.

Auckland is a city of 1.6 million people. Brown won with slightly more than 180,000 votes. Yes, it was more than the vote tallies for others but still a small slice of the whole.

Low turnout favours activist views rather than the mainstream. If not enough people care to influence the vote, they then have to lump the results.

To an outside eye, Brown has been an unconvincing leader for the city and is still struggling. The idea of having someone shake up politics as usual seems to often drown in chaos.

There’s far more at stake at a national level, and voters should be paying close attention to what the parties are saying about policies, how the party leaderships are conducting themselves, how the likely coalitions shape up.

That needs to be analysed against what each voter wants for themselves, their families and the country going forward.

In a tiny population of 5.2 million with a median age of just under 40, each vote does have influence and importance for the future.

It doesn’t help that the election build-up has so far been underwhelming. Neither of the main parties has got a rhythm going. The contest is a frustrating muddle that’s becoming more erratic.

Last week political debate bounced from an apprentice scheme to housing density to contraception, bilingual road signs and voluntary buyouts of land over flooding risk.

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Each of these things adds to the information out there in the public and might influence voting behaviour.

Of the parties, National is most obviously swinging between positions that might appeal to grassroots supporters and those that might be preferred by centrist swing voters.

For instance, saying it would reintroduce the prescription fee on contraception, due to go next month, was an odd move if the party is trying to be female-friendly. An alternative approach would be ’ Why did it take so long and why not go further?’ Women are a significant voting demographic and one National has to make up ground with.

At the last election there were 1.85 million people enrolled aged between 18 and 49 - for whom contraception and family considerations are very relevant. There are more females than males in the population and women are more likely to vote.

There is wariness among a section of female voters towards conservatives, with past scrutiny about leader Christopher Luxon’s personal views and the legislative moves over reproductive rights for women in the United States. That wariness has likely just increased.

Then again, Labour can’t seem to let a week go by without senior members getting into strife which is both an unwanted distraction for the party and adds to an impression of not enough focus and internal discipline in government.

At the moment the contest is pitting a government with more methodical predictable approach against an opposition doing everything it can to try to find an advantage, with mixed results.

The main thing is that people shift through it all, work out what they want, enrol, and vote.