Vote Compass: Exclusive numbers reveal strong support for level extension

The latest figures from TVNZ’s Vote Compass tool reveal that the majority of New Zealanders agree with the Government’s decision to maintain the current Covid-19 restrictions for at least another 10 days.

More than 4000 people answered the question from Friday evening onwards, after the Government revealed no changes would be made until at least September 16.

Two-thirds of New Zealanders agree somewhat (27 per cent) or strongly (39 per cent) with the decision.

Twenty-three per cent of New Zealanders either strongly disagreed or somewhat disagreed.

There’s also no significant difference between those who live in the Auckland region, which has stricter restrictions, and the rest of New Zealand.

The remaining 11 per cent of those surveyed were either neutral or didn’t know.

Associate Professor Jennifer Lees-Marshment from Auckland University is researching political marketing and management.

“There is broad support for the government’s handling of Covid, with surprisingly little difference between Auckland and the rest of the country, suggesting that generally amongst New Zealanders there is acceptance of the need to restrict movement to help contain the virus,” she told 1 NEWS.

However, she says just because voters have already indicated they support Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s management of Covid-19, they’ll likely be weighing up other election issues.

“It does not mean there aren’t concerns and questions for what happens after the election and how money is spent to help the country survive, or recover, from the global pandemic and economic crisis.”

Breaking it down

Those intending to vote for the National Party are much less likely to agree with the Government’s decision.

Forty-one per cent of National supporters said they didn’t support the move, compared to just eight per cent of Labour supporters.

To take part in Vote Compass, a survey tool which shows users how their views match up with party policies, go to tvnz.co.nz/votecompass

Developed by a team of social and statistical scientists from Vox Pop Labs, Vote Compass is a civic engagement application offered in New Zealand exclusively by TVNZ.

The findings are based on 4,181 respondents who participated in Vote Compass from September 5, 2020 to September 6, 2020 and answered a question of the day on COVID-19 restrictions levels.

Unlike online opinion polls, respondents to Vote Compass are not pre-selected.

However, the data is a non-random sample from the population and has been weighted in order to approximate a representative sample.