Election 2011: A true blue veteran voter

100-year-old Rose Marshall has voted in every election since 1931. Photo / Janna Dixon

She witnessed two world wars, one Great Depression and the birth of the welfare state.

Rose Marshall, 100, grew up in the King Country, near the tiny hamlet of Mairoa.

It was then, as now, true blue territory. The Nats went by a different name in the 1910s but their forebears in the Reform Party made a strong impression on Marshall's parents. "Massey was in power in my father's time. I can remember him saying Bill Massey was a good Prime Minister."

Marshall recalled what her generation still calls the Great War, which ended when she was 7. Later, when she was eligible to vote, the country was mired in the Depression.

Marshall said the campaign coverage we now know was unthinkable then.

"Living as we did in such a remote area, I wasn't aware of electioneering then."

She sometimes wished that was still the case. "There's an awful lot of guff talked and written about."

Marshall inherited her parent's National Party preferences. She said she had voted in every election since 1931 and now lives in Remuera, in the Epsom electorate. Despite the incumbent National Prime Minister's strategic wish for Epsom voters to vote Act this election, the centenarian was sticking with blue.

When asked about her favourite Prime Ministers, she spoke of Te Kuiti farmer Jim Bolger. She also liked David Lange, even though he came from the other side of the political divide.

Some of her descendants might have crossed that divide too. "The grandchildren range from 36 down. I've got a feeling they might be opposition."

Those who failed to vote attracted no sympathy from the centenarian.

"I think it's everyone's duty to cast their vote."

She hoped her eldest son, Tim, 71, who lived in Melbourne, made it to the polls. If not, he was in for a telling-off.

"I begged him to vote. But I don't know that he did. I'm not very happy about that."