KEY POINTS:
The country's northernmost publicans have not seen a National Party leader to admire since Sir Robert Muldoon lost power 24 years ago.
"I don't believe there's anyone in the National Party strong enough to lead the country," says Russell McAlees, 57, a lifetime National voter, who with his
wife, Helen, bought the Houhora Tavern, north of Kaitaia, five years ago.
"I didn't like Don Brash any better. I liked Muldoon back in his day. You need someone strong in those parties. Helen Clark is strong, but she's led by the Green Party."
Mrs McAlees, 59, has come from the Labour side of the fence. She is worried about crime, healthcare and roads and would be ready to change this time - but is also perplexed by the lack of leadership.
"I went Labour all the time but I don't know - I don't like the leader of National," she says. "It reminds me of a kindergarten class; it's not even like an adult scene. It's just not right."
From Houhora to Invercargill, this survey found most older voters are secure, and not as concerned as their children and grandchildren about rising living costs, taxes or welfare bills.
But they are concerned about hospital waiting lists. As 65-year-old Trish Brett of New Plymouth put it: "There's something wrong when people can win $5-6 million in Lotto and on the other side of things people are dying because they're not getting the proper care."
But one of the main issues worrying the grandparents is what they see as a declining standard of political behaviour.
Their main evidence is the effort MPs devoted during the survey period (September 2 to 21) to investigating donations to NZ First leader Winston Peters and his party.
Christchurch music suppliers Murray and Ngaire Lennox, both 67, say people are "fed up with the shenanigans".
"It's a great country, and we had a community choir festival at the weekend in which we sang a song I wrote two or three years back, This is Our Land", Mr Lennox says. "People think we have got a great country, but if only they could clean up their political act."
The Peters affair is driving away some former Labour voters, such as New Plymouth school hostel matron Kay Death, 52.
"I'm thinking of not voting," she says. "I can't be bothered with them."
Former Labour-voting Foxton housewife Betty Cole, about 60, says: "After this Winston Peters debacle it's definitely time for a change. I hope National will bring stability."
Many hope National will win enough seats to govern alone for the first time since proportional representation was adopted in 1996.
"I don't want the country being held to ransom by the likes of Winston Peters," says Te Puke dental practice manager Julie Anderson, 48.
In this survey, as in others, older voters who are still in the workforce aged 50 to 64 are voting National slightly more heavily than usual.
Labour is still holding up much better among those aged 65-plus.
The survey found only 58 in this age group who have decided how to vote, and they are split down the middle: 23 people to National, 22 to Labour.
Labour's biggest strength in this age bracket, and generally in this survey, is Helen Clark.
In the survey, which did not ask any questions about leadership, she drew far more unsolicited positive comments (45) than National's John Key (18), and slightly fewer negatives (18 to Mr Key's 22).
"She comes across as more of an ordinary sort of person than he does. I'd rather trust her than Key," says Philip Holcombe, 72, of Botany.
Mr Key has yet to make much impression.
Wellington drycleaner Sylvia Mann, 61, says: "I couldn't tell you the Opposition leader's name. If you pointed him out on TV, I couldn't say [his name], yet we watch the news. Ask me about the Americans and I could tell you, but I just don't know this guy."
Many voters who have noticed him are not impressed.
"I just don't trust him. I can't really put my finger on it, I just don't think I could trust him," says Christchurch housewife Lynn Forsyth, 55.
Lynne Graham, 45, a hospitality director from Upper Hutt who voted National last time, says: "I think he's a bit of a boy in a man's undies. I'm just not confident with him."
And Janna Wybrow, 32, a personal assistant in Invercargill, says bluntly: "I don't like him. He comes across as fake and smarmy."