Should National try to become the party of the working class?
Traditionally working class voters have voted for leftwing parties. In fact Labour has claimed to be the party of the working class.
But overseas elections has shown this relationship is dissolving.
In Australia many working class suburbs voted Liberal.
We know that Trump won by winning over white working class voters.
Boris Johnson just won a series of heavily working class seats that had been Labour for decades.
So should National seriously consider an all campaign to win over more working class voters?
I think they should. For a number of reasons.
- The working class work. They are the working class, not the welfare class. As they struggle with cost of living, they don’t like seeing welfare rolls expand
- National did well in 2017 with non college voters – 50% National to 33% Labour for those with school qualification only and 7% ahead with those with no qualification.
- National got more votes than Labour with those in a household earning $36k to $62k.
- The NZ unions don’t represent many working class workers anymore. They are vastly dominated by public sector unions.
- NZers without a tertiary education are culturally quite conservative. Of those with just a school qualification 75% support work for the dole, 39% support removing Treaty references from law and 44% support bringing back the death penalty. So they have little in common with woke urban liberals who think you’re scum if you don’t use the right personal pronoun.
- The only Labour front bencher from a working class background is Carmel Sepuloni. And a growing number of National MPs come from working class backgrounds.
So I think the environment is right for National to target working class voters and to in fact claim to be the party that can best represent them in Parliament. If they can turn Labour into a party that appeals to urban liberals only, then the lessons from Australia, UK and the US is that isn’t enough for the left to win.
What are things National could do, to gain and cement in the working class vote:
- Tax cuts aimed at lower and middle income families
- A boost to the “in work” tax credit for Working for Families so those in work get an income boost, but not those purely on welfare
- Take the money from free tertiary fees for university students and spent it on early childhood education
- Go hard against gangs
- Roads, baby, roads. Most working class families rely on them
- Highlight areas where the Government is over the top politically correct or woke