OPINION:
Are you part of the 'squeezed middle'? It sounds a little like a problem with an expanding waistline, but it is the National Party's current line aimed at Kiwis battling rising inflation that is steadily eroding their real income.
It is not particularly original. US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi used the phrase back in the early 2000s to pitch to Democrats, and the UK Labour Party railed about it in 2010 in the forlorn hope of attracting new support. However, National is obviously hoping it will resonate with the middle class or middle income earners who see the escalating cost of living shrinking their savings and wage packets. Recent opinion polls show the strategy may be working.
At the 2020 election, National wrote itself off after three years of pathetic internal feuding, backbiting and leadership changes. Middle class voters, many of them traditionally National voters, rocked by the insecurity of the Covid-19 crisis, flocked to the protective arms of Labour, which was hammering the message "be kind". All that has now changed.
With Christopher Luxon and finance spokesperson Nicola Willis, the Nats have finally come up with a leadership team that looks and sounds reasonably competent. As long as it can keep some of its loonier backbenchers safely locked away for the next 12 months or so, National's prospects at the 2023 election are looking much better than they were a few months ago.
/cloudfront-ap-southeast-2.images.arcpublishing.com/nzme/EYQUHFLAGRNWRD4MPCYXACCSLQ.jpg)
Fear of Covid-19 is fading as a factor. Some health experts are saying, due to under-reporting of the illness, as much as half the population may have had it by now. People are less afraid of what they know, and as vile as Covid is, it is not the scary man-eating monster it once seemed.
What worries 'the middle' now is increasing mortgage rates. Home loans already chew a big hunk out of a family's earnings and if interest rates keep increasing, they imperil the very home folks live in.
Prices, particularly supermarket costs, are also gnawing away at disposable income. People can economise by not spending on most goods and services, but food is pretty much an essential and there is a limit to how much you can scrimp and save with it.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.All of which is driving those polls to be more favourable to National, because people are becoming frustrated. Finance Minister Grant Robertson has less than 18 months to turn it around, by easing the burden on the middle. Sadly for him, he has yet to come up with the policy mix that will do it. The Government appears to be focused on well-meaning issues at the expense of addressing the hip-pocket ones that make the difference to those who are being squeezed.
As concerning as global-warming emissions may be, right now the key segment of election-winning voters are focused on their declining real incomes. Anything that imposes additional costs on people is likely to be resoundingly rejected.
A well-meaning reset of the health system may be long overdue, but many voters are focused on their wallets, not the deficiencies of their hospitals.
Wasteful Government spending on media advertising, designed to capture hearts and minds for a new Government policy, is likely to have the opposite effect on voters. National has twigged to that, too.
The middle is a vital election asset for a party, because the rich are generally locked in to vote National or Act, while the poor are mostly welded to Labour, the Greens or Te Pāti Māori.
Labour needs to urgently appease the swinging voter in the middle.
