The tricky throuple of the Opposition: The data behind each party's politics

Sunday, 12 October 2025

ANALYSIS: If there had been an election yesterday, Chris Hipkins would supposedly be waking up as prime minister elect this morning.

Several polls now point to the left “bloc” of parties gaining a slim majority.

But how cohesive is this bloc, really? The Greens are rolling out policies well to the left of Labour’s usual comfort zone while Labour itself keeps mum on what on earth it wants to do in Government. Hipkins said Te Pāti Māori (TPM) were a “long way away from” being ready to govern in the last few weeks, after a bruising by-election campaign in Tāmaki Makaurau and a chaotic month following it. The question of whether they can actually work together in any kind of governing arrangement remains very much open.

A few weeks ago, we took a look at the parties that make up the coalition, using some data from the New Zealand Election Study (NZES). This massive survey is run after every election and queries voters on a whole range of things, from their media diet to their feelings on abortion.

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These voter bases made some of the problems within the coalition obvious: National and ACT voters agree on quite a bit, while many NZ First voters are far more left wing on the economy. We called it an “awkward arranged marriage” - held together as much more by the contracts all parties have signed than by affection.

If the coalition was a marriage, the Opposition is a new and very tricky “throuple”. After years as a fairly comfortable pair, Labour and the Greens have been forced to introduce a third in the relationship. Like many polyamorous arrangements, one of the original pair - the Greens - is a bit more enamoured with the new entrant.

We can see this by looking at the views of each party’s supporters at the 2023 election. But before getting into those views, let’s talk about who the typical voter is for each party.

A Gen Xer and two millennials

The typical Labour voter was a man nearing retirement who lived in a house he owned.

Indeed, close to a third (31%) of Labour voters owned their house outright, while 28% had a mortgage.

This Labour voter was 53 at the last election so is 55 now. And he is probably Pakeha - 57% of Labour voters in 2023 were.

That said, the Green voter base was slightly whiter - 63% of their 2023 vote said they were New Zealand European.

They were also far younger - the median Green voter was 34 at the last election so will be 36 now. And unlike her Labour counterpart she is more likely to be either renting or living with family than in a home she owns - 31% of Green voters were renters and 20% lived with family.

Yet she probably makes a bit more money than her older Labour-voting counterpart, or at least lives in a household with more. Almost a quarter (23%) of Labour voters lived in a household bringing in $44,520 or less a year, while just 13% of Green voters did.

Meanwhile 40% of Green voters were in a household with over $123,435 of income a year, compared to 31% of Labour voters. The median voter for all three parties was in full-time work.

TPM’s voter base - made up of people who party voted for the party, not just seat voted - was unsurprisingly a lot more Māori than the two larger parties.

Seventy per cent of TPM’s voters were Māori. The median voter was a bit older than a Green voter - 39 at the last election and 41 now.

He was about as likely to live in a home he owned than not, and was the most likely to have a mortgage or be a renter - 37% of TPM’s voters have a mortgage and 32% rent. He is the least likely of all three typical voters to own his home outright - despite being older than the typical Greens voter.

He is however of higher income than the typical Labour voter - 40% of TPM voters lived in households bringing in over $123,435.

Left turn please

Now we know a bit more about who these voters are, let’s dive into what they think.

Before we get onto issues, the NZES has a handy question to check where voters place themselves on a left-right scale, with “0” being the furtherest possible left and “10” being the furtherest right.

As you might expect, Green and TPM voters see themselves as solidly on the left. The majority (52%) put themselves at 2 or under, as did a majority of TPM voters.

Labour voters also generally placed themselves on the left, but a bit less so - a majority put themselves at 4 or under, and a sizeable chunk put themselves either in the centre at five or into the right.

But not everyone is so sure of their placement - about a fifth of Labour and TPM voters ticked “don’t know”.

We can learn a bit more by asking about issues.

The voters agree on quite a bit. Supermajorities either agree or strongly agree with the notion that income inequality is too high in New Zealand and that privatisation has gone too far. Solid majorities agree that more needs to be done on climate change - although unsurprisingly Green voters were more likely to believe this. And they are generally quite liberal on issues such as abortion.

An appetite for spending on social services was probably the most comfortable place for these voters.

But paying for those services was an area with more cracks.

Asked if they agreed or disagreed with the statement “capital gains should not be taxed” - a decent minority of Labour voters agree (23%), compared to just 8% of Greens. Green voters were by far the most likely to “strongly disagree” - 57% did, compared to just 31% of Labour voters.

There were stronger cracks on two contentious issues that ironically unite the opposition: Attitudes to crime and Māori issues.

Two thirds of Labour voters (67%) wanted to see stiffer sentences for “lawbreakers”. Almost half of Te Pāti Māori voters agreed (47%) but just 33% of Green voters did.

A stronger difference emerges on the issue of the Māori role in Government decision making. Two thirds of TPM voters “strongly agreed” that “Māori should have more say in government decisons” - compared to just 27% of Green voters and 14% of Labour voters.

Tensions like this are exactly what the coalition parties will seek to exploit in the next 12 months as these parties roll out policies and start to talk about “bottom lines” for coalition negotiations.

There may be plenty these three agree on. But unlike the coalition they do not have all that much experience working together, or any contracts spelling out how to do so. Perhaps it is time for a pre-nup.