Wellington Poll Results Part 3
The full public results of the Better Wellington Curia poll are here. In this final part I want to focus on rates and related issues.
We asked support for a general proposition:
Wellington City Council should have smaller rates increases in future
That had 87% in favour and just 5% opposed.
We then asked more specifically:
Council rate increases should not exceed the rate of inflation
This had a still massive 77% in favour and just 9% opposed. 60% of those who voted for Tory Whanau in 2022 agreed with it and only 21% disagreed.
Net support by party vote was:
- National +89%
- TPM +77%
- NZ First +70%
- Labour +65%
- ACT +62%
- Greens +52%
A potential policy was polled on:
Would you support or oppose a policy that if the Council wishes to increase rates by more than inflation, any large projects they wish to fund must be approved by residents in a referendum?
This had 53% support and 29% opposition for net support of +24%. It was supported by all genders and age groups, and all five general ward voters,
Net support by party vote was:
- NZ First +66%
- National +49%
- ACT +36%
- Labour +27%
- TPM +8%
- Greens +5%
So net support from voters of all six parliamentary parties.
We also asked agreement on
Party politics doesn’t belong around the council table
This had 64% agreement and only 14% disagreement.
Two final questions on housing, being:
Do you believe social housing is primarily the responsibility of the city council or the central government?
Wellington City Council is funded by property owners through rates. Do you believe property owners should pay to provide social housing?
69% of Wellingtonians said that social housing is primarily the responsibility of the central government with only 11% saying the city council.
Only 24% support property owners paying rates to provide social housing with 57% opposed. Net support by party vote was:
- TPM +46%
- Greens +0%
- Labour -32%
- NZ First -51%
- National -56%
- ACT -80%
So overall what Wellingtonians want is:
- Better performance from the Mayor and Council
- A focus on fixing the basics
- Smaller rate increases, at or under the rate of inflation
- Referenda on major projects
- No party politics around the Council table
- More regular bus and train services
- No Golden Mile project
- No more cycleways
- Social housing transferred to central Government
None of this should be surprising.