TOP’s Optimism vs NZFirst Malice – New Zealand vs Old Zealand
I was surprised last week.
I thought the blockbuster Roy Morgan Poll would have been carried by all mainstream media, but none of them did.
I’ve found that if a Blog breaks a Poll, the mainstream media ignore it, especially if the result demands more from their political analysis than they are capable of.
The fact TOP polled over the 5% threshold and came in at 6% is an enormous story about NZ finally moving to a multi party MMP landscape.
With TOP scoring 6%, there is a real chance that momentum from horrified National Urban Voters and Blue/Green Green voters could well propel TOP over the threshold and destroying the NZ Rights favourite attack weapon of Labour+Green+MP fear mongering.
The reality is that the choice is either between the fresh optimism of Qiulae or the calcified bigotry of NZ First and Winston.
If Winstonβs stoking of culture war malice is successful and he is the Kingmaker for a 5th time, he will demand the one thing he has always craved β Prime Ministership.
It will be either 12 months as PM in a National/ACT/NZF Government or 18 months in a NZF/Labour/Green Government.
But if TOP breach the 5% threshold, the possibility of a Labour/Green/TOP Government is far more likely than Winston being Kingmaker again.
I think there Β a lot of urban blue/green National vote who are horrified by this Governments racism and culture war baiting. As National continue to disintegrate into the 20s, they could easily lose 2 points to TOP and with a point from the Greens, could absolutely get over 5%.
Then all that bigotry that NZF and ACT have been trading in dissipates and leaves them high and dry fighting over an ever diminishing swamp of red-necks.
If TOP continues to build momentum, the political calculus heading toward Election 2026 could shift dramatically. A party crossing the 5 percent threshold does more than gain seats β it changes the narrative about who holds influence in coalition negotiations and what political future voters believe is possible.
Election 2026 is Old Zealand vs New Zealand.
Bernard Hickey makes this point from the latest polling dataβ¦
Old anti-vaxx men prefer the coalition. Young women donβt.
A majority of male voters (54%) supported the centre-right, whereas 58% of female voters supported the centre-left. Voters under 40 years old were more supportive of the centre-left at 57%, whereas over 60 year old voters are more supportive of the centre-right, at 60%.
The Kaka
β¦Old Zealand are boomer white culture war males who thrash in fury at Trans, climate change, MΔori, vaccines, the Treaty and are virulently pro Israel and Trump.
They are culturally threatened, have property and are economically anxious.
They are driven by Social Media Hate algorithms.
They have power because they religiously vote to ensure their privilege.
The good news for New Zealand is that Old Zealand are a shrinking electorate.
In the battle between Old Zealand and New Zealand in the 2026 election, Gen Xβers are going to be the difference.
Look at the demographics.
Estimation for 2025 (or more recent)
If similar age proportions hold, then:
If 60+ voters are ~28-30% of the voter roll, and
Under-40 voters are ~35%,
then in a total roll of ~3.6 million enrolled voters (approx. current size), youβd expect:
60+ voters β β 1.0 to 1.1 million
18-40 voters β β 1.25 million
Polling data tells us that you are more likely to be a reactionary redneck if you are over 60 (and male) and are far more likely to vote Left if you are 18-40 and female.
There are around 1.3 million Kiwis aged between 40 and 60, that is Gen X, we are the ones who are going to be the decider in this election.
As a generation, do we want to side with the rednecks of Old Zealand or support New Zealand?
Thanks to our middle class woke activists during the social media cancel culture Lynch mobs, we drove many young men into the arms of the reactionary right, we need to show those men that there is a place on the Left for them.
Old Zealand trades in the spite and malice of culture war hate while in lockstep with the Billionaire class, the Banks, the speculators and the polluters, isnβt it time to break the power of these pricks?
Itβs time for Gen X to step up to help Millennials and Gen Z win the 2026 Election.
Old Zealand is dying metaphorically and literally. New Zealand is the future. Which one wins the Election?
I think TOP might be in fact right leaning .Yes they are talking a universal benefit of $400 which looks like they care about the less well off .However ,that would allow them to make that the total upper limit .I am sure NACT would be gleeful at that figure .Imaging how much they would cut from the welfare spend .
Apart from this small benefit I see nothing from TOP that tells me they will take steps to end poverty in NZ .If they were to end poverty imaging the real savings over the next 100 years as there would be no need for 90% of government payments such as accomadation ,minimum wage ,ECE subsidies and the corporate welfare payment that is WFF .
As much as I love the majority of what TOP is doing and their policies, I can’t help but feel they may be peaking too early, still if they are now on the radar for policy debates, discussion groups and the like they may be able to hold the line for the next five months. They need to keep their presentations as simple and clear as possible, Raf presented policy as overly intellectual, fine for analysis but not great for whipping up the electorate. Another serious challenge is that Labour finally get their act together and start releasing policy. When they do and if the polls don’t jump up then Labours issue is two parts- Hipkins will be revealed to be a weak placeholder leader, and could a replacement do any better? The rest of their lineup don’t look like a strong team for igniting the electorate aflame – they seem to me to be too penned in to the labour party funnel machine. Labour need to win back the ‘working classes’ and the male vote. If they don’t their potential to start looking too much like green and acting like national. If they are short of ideas then they’ll start pinching garnish policy from TOP. TOP at least tout the framework of evidence based policy, we really don’t know what Labour stands for these days. Labour lost someone great in the form of David Parker.
If TOP get in to parliment, they will have to run a very tight ship- its hard to not see them as a pack of oddballs tied together with a policy ribbon, and the potential for them to go off script 6 months in is large. We will hopefully get to see what sort of discipline they can maintain as new kids on the block. I wish TOP well it’s time we had something fresh in parliment something fit for the new era.
I think think the left, especially Labour, are going to have to jump through burning hoops to get young men to consider voting for them these days. Especially the ones who want a job.
Hey Martyn. If us old Boomers are so bad why do the youngies listen to our music?
PS we wonβt talk about the Drugs, sex, Earls Court etc
Here fucking here!
Martin has to have some one to bash just like every other blogger out there .
What a gas bottle full of pointless fucking gas. TOP? ” TOP’s optimism…” What, you mean like ” Gosh! Gee ! Golly! Wowee! as we fall ever further from the edge of the cliff? I mean, really? If it smells, tastes, feels and sounds like yet another neoliberal distraction to occupy the empty minds of post neoliberal mumbling shufflers then it probably is.
Until we make our vote compulsory so that every muppet must engage then we may as well vote to all move to Australia. Oh, wait?
Or ! But hey! There’s always wondrous Auckland to save the day! An ugly collage of plasti houses selling for fake millions while those necessary homeless people must cower at the feet of real esnake agents trying to sell the doorways they must sleep in. Then, there’s the crusty, ugly, old sulky mayor with less class than that dead rat you found under the fridge. He’s a winner, that’s for sure.
TOP’s another fluttering-tinsel tie-down, a distraction from the frigid reality that Auckland’s now a liability where once it was used to seduce terminally lazy narcissists from massage parlours and car sales yards and now a ghetto in the making. Auckland and it’s Wellington fly-minions have dragged us down to the excrement left behind by the hyper riche who’ve long since scuttled off to Australia as they’ve shat themselves in fright.
We have a glorious country to find peace and prosperity on and within and Auckland sunk it and now we have pop-up sideshow gasbag parties like TOP to pretend to know how to patch the holes.
Whether you like it or not we need a public, royal commission of inquiry up and into our economy and our politics from the formation of the national party in 1936.
If we have compulsory voting – then we must have a ‘no confidence’ option.
TOP are on the right, except their environmental policies are not.
They will take from Labour and the Greens.
I couldn’t find anything about their Foreign policy.