Mike Hosking: You can't rely on young people to vote

Just 63 per cent of 18 to 24 year olds are enrolled to vote, and that is a cause for concern for Labour and the Greens.

COMMENT

There will be no youth-quake this year.

There is never a youth-quake, and that is the trouble with youth, if they could change the world talking about it or tweeting about it, something might actually happen, but given it requires organising yourself to the extent you get a pen and fill out a form, it hasn't and won't.

Just 63 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds are enrolled to vote, and here's why this is an issue for Labour and the Greens.

Their support from that group would be into the 70 per cent area, that's if you believe overall support is into the 50s as per the polls.

Young people love the left, young people are largely left because they haven't lived life, paid bills, had kids, got experience and basically woken up to the fact that a lot of the left is theoretical puffery, that as we have witnessed pre-Covid, doesn't actually amount to a lot once you get to government.

The PM was quite right at her launch over the weekend to keep saying there is more to do . . there IS more to do, like most of the stuff they failed to do these past three years.

The majority of young people love "Queen Cindy" (my daughters' term for her), and if they don't love her majesty, they are all about saving the earth, and climate change and Chloe.

But what they say and what they do, are two very different things, that's why 63 per cent are enrolled and 37 per cent aren't.

Compare that to the 90 per cent of over 40s who are.

I am most proud our household isn't part of the malaise.

Four of our five kids are old enough to vote, and every one of them is enrolled, not through our cajoling but merely because they are active and interested.

I don't care who they vote for, I am just pleased given the stats they care enough to muster the energy to participate.

Not just that, they know why they are voting the way they are, in other words they have reasons, they've thought about it, they can rationalise it, and in a democracy you can't ask for a lot more than that.

But back to the 37 per cent who are still looking for a pen or a motivation, what if they don't turn out? And in that lies a real danger.

In fact a couple of dangers for Labour especially.

If you believe the polls (which I don't), it's theirs to lose, trouble with that is it breeds complacency, why bother voting, they've already won, also the left traditionally don't get the turn out as much as the conservatives.

For the Greens it's even more dangerous, not only have Labour partially stolen their traditional offshore vote by going along with that Claytons charging for quarantine system, but when you're on 5 per cent and flirting with annihilation, having your voting base not enrolled, or sleeping in, or still yet to wake up from last night's cannabis, is more worry than you need.

Which is why this race is going to be a lot closer than many who have it as a foregone conclusion, think.

Already the work Horizon and its polling have been doing around support for the Government's Covid response is showing an alarming fall.

We have come out of the soporific stupor, that crazed glow of appreciation for being locked up, and we've rejoined the real world as we've seen a couple of hundred thousand out of work with more to come.

We have seen a debt pile mount up that's so large, most couldn't tell you how many zeros that is.

Our border is locked, its choked, labour can't get in, skills are missing, work isn't being done, the calls are growing from experienced operators like Sir John Key and Helen Clark to do more.

The Government's gamble, that a successful health response is all we need to see and talk about, will in weeks to come prove not just arrogant, but an arrogant mistake.

New Zealand has traditionally been aspirational, we inherently want more and better, this is why the polls will close, but will they close enough? Too early to call it.

But so much of the noise around this government and its march to an automatic victory has come from a group that can't even fill out a form and won't actually be there on the day.