Take three: But who do we like?

Helen Clark is still our preferred Prime Minister, but the leader people love to praise is Winston Peters.

Three years ago, this sampling in the streets found the Prime Minister apparently on cordial first-name terms with the nation. Asked to talk about who they were voting for, many said they were voting Labour because of "Helen".

She was seen as a strong leader, down-to-earth and "one of us", a practical person who could be the woman next-door.

Three years on, some of that survives.

For Dunedin personal assistant Lesley Day, she is "the best Prime Minister we could possibly have. She's strong, decisive."

But now there is a new theme to what people say. The key word is arrogance. "Helen Clark was good when she got in, but she's got too arrogant," says Massey pensioner Bessie Kennedy, 76.

She is blamed for "bullying" people into not smoking, banning politically incorrect language and, prospectively, stopping parents smacking their kids.

"I don't want Helen Clark telling me what to do - smoking, drinking, human rights," says Avondale mother Jenny Worsley, 33.

But voters don't think much of National's Don Brash either. In fact, they hardly think about him at all.

Just six people out of 600 had anything good to say about him, mostly about the economic expertise that he earned at the Reserve Bank.

Thirteen people said they didn't trust him, or just didn't like him.

North Shore building maintenance contractor Bill McConville, a traditional National voter, thinks so little of him he will vote for Act in desperation. "It's Don more than the policies," he says. "He feints with the left and punches with the right."

Strongest endorsements go to Peters - in the words of Wellsford factory hand Katherine, "New Zealand's most honest politician".

Lynda Powell, from his home base of Tauranga, says: "I like the fact that he will say something as it is. New Zealanders are sick of everything being coloured in. We like to see something for what it is, in its rawness."

Peters' appeal stretches from 19-year-old Christchurch student Arie McPhee, who likes "a bit of shit-stirring in Parliament", to retired Tauranga educator Diane Feather, who says he "keeps them on their toes".

Kaitaia Transport manager Ralph Subritzky, Maori like Peters, says he is "not afraid to speak out against our own kind or anybody".

A public servant in West Auckland, banned from speaking publicly on politics, says Peters has taken a lot of flak on issues the establishment would rather not talk about, such as immigration and the "winebox" inquiry into tax dealings by the financiers Fay, Richwhite.

"I would vote for Winston because he has a higher degree of integrity than the others seem to show," the public servant says.

"Mr Brash will not come out [with policies]. Winston has stood up. He is careful in what he says.

"You have to admire him for having the guts to take the flak."