Curia and Talbot Mills both released poll results last week. Most of the results were not statistically significant but there has been a very definite trend downwards for Labour and Jacinda Ardern over the past three months.
Curia is the right-wing poll run by National party activist David Farrar who also publishes Kiwiblog. The poll was for the Taxpayers' Union, another right-wing group. Its results were a little less flattering to Labour than the less politically-bound Talbot Mills poll but both polls showed the similar trends:
While Labour and Jacinda are still by far the most preferred, both were down on previous polls; National and Judith were up a little; ACT and David Seymour were indeterminate; the Greens were up a litle.
More people saw the country heading in the wrong direction in the Curia poll, and those thinking government's performance "good" in the TM poll had dropped from 60 to 46%.
With little other than Covid reports and stories on the media, the poll results almost certainly reflect how the public sees the government's handling of the virus.
And this is where misinformation has thrived. One example is the so-called Freedom and Rights Coalition, linked to Destiny Church Bishop Brian Tamaki, that held protests today with thousands "threatened to cause travel chaos" in our larger cities. (At the time of writing, there's been some disruption to traffic in Auckland, but elsewhere protests have been small and there's been little disruption to traffic but there were over 3,000 protestors outside Parliament on Tuesday.)
The Coalition has "four demands of Government":
1) "Remove vaccination mandates immediately, 2) Revoke the discriminating traffic light system, 3) Move NZ to level 1 NOW, 4) Remove the Auckland borders!" Listed below are some of its other concerns:
Some 75% of TM pollsters think Covid is going to get worse, and most experts seem to agree with them although many of them think it will be contained.
Today's health briefing had 175 new cases (down from 201 yesterday), 159 in Auckland, 8 in the Waikato, 2 in Northland, 5 in Taranaki, and 1 in Taupo, a new location. 93 people were in the hospital, 9 in intensive care or high dependency units.
With Covid going up, the question now is will support for Labour continue to go down, or will the average New Zealander see through the misinformation from the likes of the called Freedom and Rights Coalition, and recognize that Government's doing a reasonable job?
So far, we have done better than almost every other country. Mistakes have been made as they always are when faced with new challenges, but we have learnt from the mistakes. We are doing the best we can. It's doubtful any other political party would have done any better.
I'll leave readers to judge the direction, intent and plausibility of the "Freedom and Rights Coalition.
-- ACW
Freedom and Rights Coalition concerns for and with ...
Farmers struggling with "unworkable regulations"; Property owners, "struggling with unworkable RMA regulations"; Businesses with "never-ending lockdowns"; Taxpayers with "reckless use of ... money;" Families, "Government continues to endanger our kids, removing parental consents, and liberalising our education system"; Churches, "government that continually tries to marginalise and silence the churches; voice"; Indigenous peoples, "we stand for Tino Rangatiratanga and Mana Motuhake..."; First Home Buyers, "we stand for better property conditions and finance packages"; Youth, "we stand for our future ... against burdening with debt"; Mental Health Advocates, "we stand for better health conditions;" Freedom Advocates, "we stand for the protection of freedom and rights of good, honest, hard-working Kiwis, and to preserve the Kiwi way of life."
No comments:
Post a Comment