Kiwis overwhelmingly agree Government responded appropriately to Covid-19 - 1 NEWS poll

May 26, 2020

That’s according to the Latest 1 NEWS Colmar Brunton poll.

New Zealanders overwhelmingly think the Government responded appropriately to the coronavirus outbreak, according to the latest 1 NEWS Colmar Brunton poll. 

It's a 30 per cent jump in approval since February's poll. 

Those polled were asked, "Do you think the New Zealand Government has responded appropriately to the coronavirus outbreak?"

The results were:

Yes - 92%
No - 7%
Don’t know/Not sure what coronavirus is - 2%

(Percentages do not add to 100% due to rounding)

The groups of people who were more likely than average to think the Government responded appropriately to Covid-19 were Labour Party supporters, Asian New Zealanders and people aged 18-29. 

Those who were more likely than average to think the Government did not respond appropriately were National Party supporters and men aged over 55. 

1 NEWS also asked the same question during February's Colmar Brunton Poll - where only 62 per cent thought the Government had responded appropriately, 25 per cent disagreed and 12 per cent did not know. 

New Zealanders were asked the question as part of the latest 1 NEWS Colmar Brunton poll.

Since then, the country went into lockdown under Alert Level 4, causing many industries to grind to a halt. The Government announced a $50 billion Covid-19 package at Budget 2020.

Treasury predicted unemployment to hit a peak of 9.6 per cent in June this year, bouncing back to 4.2 per cent in two years.

Cameron Bagrie expected borrowing to go up to about $40 billion.

Deficits were thought to be about 9.3 per cent of GDP from 2020 to 2022. This is only set to reduce in 2024 to about 1.3 per cent of GDP. Net core Crown debt is expected to rise to 53.6 per cent in 2023 and 2024.

The 1 NEWS Colmar Brunton Poll also asked: "How would you rate the New Zealand Government’s response to the economic impacts of the coronavirus outbreak?"

The results were:

Good (very or fairly good) - 86%
Poor (very or fairly poor) - 12%

Of that, 38 per cent thought the economic response was "very good" and 48 per cent thought "fairly good". Nine per cent thought the Government response was "fairly poor", three per cent thought it was "very poor", and two per cent did not know. 

Labour Party supporters, Māori and women were more likely than average (86 per cent) to rate the Government's response to the economic impacts of Covid-19 as "good".

Those who were more likely than average (12 per cent) to think the Government's response was poor were National Party supporters, people living in Taranaki or Manawatu-Wanganui and men. 

Between May 16 to 20, 2020, 1003 eligible voters were polled by landline (402) and mobile phone (601). The maximum sampling error is approximately ±3.1%-points at the 95% confidence level.

The data has been weighted to align with Stats NZ population counts for age, gender, region, ethnic identification and mobile or landline access.

SHARE ME

More Stories