Street-smart voters admit confusion

Warren Gamble talks to electors who expertly picked the last election but find it's not so easy this time.

Halfway into the election campaign, the residents of a poll-predicting neighbourhood admit to being confused, suspicious or largely unmoved by the political jousting.

Most of those in Vardon Rd - the Titirangi neighbourhood the Weekend Herald is following because its votes in 1996 almost exactly mirrored the election result - have not been swayed from their declared preferences.

But undecided voter Dave Thomas says he is no clearer two weeks after our political leaders took to the hustings.

"I am very confused," the 49-year-old mechanic admits. "I think for my children's sake I should vote Labour, but where I am now [in a long-term job] I should vote National. The company has been very good to me and they don't want to pay more taxes."

Mr Thomas says he has been impressed with Helen Clark's stand on fighting crime by giving families more support rather than building more prisons. But he is worried about differences between Labour and the Alliance this week over realistic levels of Government spending.

However, he is still tending towards a change "as long as it's for the better of the country."

For today, though, he and wife Robina, who is also undecided, have more than political marriages to deal with. Their 21-year-old daughter is getting married in a church which will double as a polling booth in two weeks.

Ross Dominey, who is backing a centre-left government, says no winner has yet emerged, a prospect which worries him more than a clear-cut result for the centre-right.

He is also concerned about the large numbers of unenrolled voters. "Some people have just given up hope."

In assessing this week's campaigning he dismisses as an emotive sideshow National's move to give police powers to take DNA samples from burglary suspects.

Alliance leader Jim Anderton has impressed him most this week with his stand on reintroducing some tariffs to protect local industry. "That took courage, and the others have gone a bit soft on things."

But he has been unimpressed with Jenny Shipley, who came across as "superficial and overprogrammed."

Graeme Mitchell, a painting contractor favouring the centre-right, says Act leader Richard Prebble has been performing well, and the polls are reflecting that.

A supporter of Act's tougher and longer prison sentencing policy, Mr Mitchell also welcomes National's DNA test plan, saying people who have nothing to hide would not mind giving a sample.

"We got burgled here and they took our fingerprints to eliminate us. We didn't care because we had nothing to hide."

Jan Willy, who favours National, reserves her harshest criticism for the MMP system, saying it has robbed people of the choice to get what they want.

"If you win, you lose," she says. "National can't govern and neither will Labour and you have some smirky little person in the middle. I find that appalling."

She would rather Labour wins than have Winston Peters picking and choosing policies. That prospect has dulled her interest in the campaign, although she believes this week's Labour-Alliance spat is a sign of worse to come in a centre-left coalition.

"But really, I am at the point where I think I will just forget about it and vote National."

Her mother-in-law, Pat Willy, has been unimpressed by what she calls a non-event week on the hustings. But she is also alarmed at the prospect of Mr Peters holding sway in the middle.

"He's going to hold up everything that comes up.

"At least under the old system you can blame someone. Who can you blame now?"