Government trusted but honesty doubts linger

David Parker

Voters are fairly evenly split about whether the Government is honest, the latest Herald-DigiPoll survey shows, but most people trust it to act in the best interests of the country. 

Most believe that David Parker did the right thing in resigning from the Cabinet over a false declaration to the Companies Office.

The questions were included in the survey after several credibility issues plagued the Government this year.

Among them was the admission by Mr Parker that he made a false declaration to the Companies Office and Cabinet minister David Benson-Pope being pilloried for having told Parliament last year he was not aware of any complaints against him as a teacher when formal letters of complaint came to light. 

In the poll of 750 respondents, 45.5 per cent believed the Government was honest and 43.7 per cent did not.

The Government rated higher on a question of trust, rather than honesty.

Asked if they trusted the Government to do what it thought was in the best interests of the country, 56.7 per cent of respondents said yes, and 39.5 per cent no.

Mr Parker resigned initially as Attorney-General and then from all his portfolios, transport, energy and climate change..

A majority of those polled, 55 per cent, believed Mr Parker's punishment was appropriate. However 18.4 per cent believed it was too harsh and 14.9 per cent ieved it was not harsh enough.

The poll has a margin of error of 3.6 per cent.

CORRECTION: In the original version of this report, we stated incorrectly that police had found that the Labour Party's pledge card was not properly authorised as election material and had breached the spending limit. Police found a prima facie case that the card was not properly authorised but on the issue of over-spending police found insufficient evidence of an offence against the Electoral Act. The error was the Herald's.