A lot has happened since June. For one, the NZ Labour Party has a charismatic new leader. The rise of Jacinda Ardern is causing a lot of excitement in the media. But there is good reason to be skeptical of what Bryce Edwards calls ‘Jacindarama’.
I would argue that the main challenge for Labour is to win back the working-class. Last year, I did some research into this for my MA thesis. I have summarised my findings on the University of Auckland Politics & IR blog Pacific Outlier. The following table illustrates my argument.
| Working-class | Middle-class | |||
| Labour | National | Labour | National | |
| 1996 | 32% | 29% | 26% | 37% |
| 1999 | 47% | 22% | 32% | 37% |
| 2002 | 45% | 16% | 40% | 23% |
| 2005 | 47% | 32% | 42% | 38% |
| 2008 | 42% | 38% | 28% | 50% |
| 2011 | 39% | 36% | 20% | 54% |
| 2014 | 35% | 38% | 20% | 52% |
These numbers come from the NZ Election Study. I explain my methodology in the Pacific Outlier post, but basically the working-class are those voters in manual and low or semi-skilled non-manual employment. It includes both the traditional blue-collar workforce and those in routine white-collar employment. I estimated that, in 2014, the working-class made up nearly 40 percent of the vote.
But it was National, the party of businessmen and farmers, that won the working-class in 2014. A further 18 percent went to the Greens and NZ First (nine percent each). This is significant because until now, Labour has relied on strong working-class support to carry it to victory. The Labour share of the working-class vote has fallen from an average of 46 percent in 1999-2005 to 35 percent in 2014.
To put it another way, Labour must win back the working-class before it can win the country.
In the Balance 