Labour's support slides in Queen City

By SIMON COLLINS

Labour has been dealt a wounding blow by voters in the critical Auckland region, undermining its prospects of forming a majority Government after the election.

The party lost 10 per cent support in the first two weeks of the campaign in the vote-rich region. The winners were New Zealand First and the Greens.

A regional breakdown of this week's Herald-DigiPoll survey shows Aucklanders swung more strongly to both the leading minor parties than the country as a whole during the first fortnight.

Labour slipped in Auckland from 47 per cent to 37 per cent support, while National held steady on 27 per cent.

In contrast, Labour has held up above 50 per cent in provincial areas.

The regional results, based on telephone codes, are subject to twice the DigiPoll's national margin of error (6.5 per cent compared with 3.2 per cent).

For example, National's support in the Central North Island jumped from 22 per cent in the first week of the campaign to 29 per cent in the second week, only to plunge to 18 per cent in the latest poll.

Allowing for sampling volatility, this probably means that National held steady in the region, as it did in all other regions, with a national average of 23 to 25 per cent.

Compared with regional voting in the last election, the latest poll suggests that National has lost support over the longer term in all regions - down 3 per cent in Auckland and between 8 and 12 per cent in all other regions.

Labour is down 2 per cent from its 1999 election vote in Auckland, but is up in all other regions by between 4 and 14 per cent.

The Greens are up 9 per cent since the last election in both Auckland and Wellington, but have gained just 4 per cent in the provinces, confirming that they are predominantly an urban, and young, phenomenon. They have 19 per cent support among 18 to 39-year-olds nationally, but only 6 per cent support among the 40-plus.

NZ First is up 4 or 5 per cent in all regions since 1999, and continues to poll best in Auckland and the central North Island.

Party leader Winston Peters' promises to "fix" immigration and crime are likely to have the strongest appeal in Auckland, where immigration and violent crime rates are highest, and his promise to "fix the treaty industry" is most relevant where most Maori live - in the northern and central regions.

In contrast to the Greens, NZ First has 11.5 per cent support among the over-40s and only 3.5 per cent among those under 40.

Act, like the Greens, is an urban party, polling roughly twice as well in Auckland and Wellington as in the provinces. Any changes since the last election, when it gained 7 per cent support, are statistically insignificant.

Act and Labour are the only parties with clear gender biases. Act is polling 7 per cent among men and only 4 per cent among women, while Labour has only 42 per cent support from men but 51 per cent from women.

The Alliance, which got 7.7 per cent at the last election, has collapsed everywhere. Laila Harre's remnant party is polling below 0.5 per cent in all regions, and Jim Anderton's Progressive Coalition peaks at just 2 per cent in the South Island.

The poll confirms other signs that Aucklanders have become more volatile politically than provincial New Zealanders.

The Queen City swung heavily left in the last big Labour landslide in 1987, when blue-rinse Remuera almost fell to Judith Tizard.

The city returned to National in 1990, but then gave control of the Auckland Regional Services Trust to the newly formed Alliance just two years later.

In 1996 Aucklanders voted strongly for the latest new party, NZ First.

DigiPoll managing director Dr Gabriel Dekel said polls found that Auckland was more liberal than the rest of the country on issues ranging from racial tolerance to tipping in restaurants.

"It shows a trend to being more cosmopolitan and, by definition, more subject to new ideas.

"So there is a different culture in Auckland than there is in the rest of New Zealand."

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