Lindsay Mitchell
lindsaymitchell.blogspot.com
Lindsay Mitchell has been researching and commenting on welfare since 2001. Many of her articles have been published in mainstream media and she has appeared on radio, tv and before select committees discussing issues relating to welfare. Lindsay is also an artist who works under commission and exhibits at Wellington, New Zealand, galleries.
The Taxpayer’s Union Curia Poll released yesterday includes a gender breakdown. While we know more females than males vote Left, I didn’t expect a gap this big.
50% of males would vote National/ACT with only 43.2 per cent voting Labour/Greens.
Essentially women, collectively, are running the show.
What is it about Labour/Greens policies that women love?
The trend isn’t confined to New Zealand. Here’s one explanation from Europe:
“…social liberalism has been gaining ground. It appears to have a direct impact with women increasingly calling for the redistribution of wealth, and men insisting more often on personal responsibility in politics.”
That’d explain the policy attraction of Labour and the Greens here. And of course, there’s the indispensable policy called ‘Jacinda’.
What really worries me is the conclusion drawn. That ACT and National need to attract more support from women. True but they can’t do it at the risk of losing support of men.
For integrity’s sake parties should stick to policies based on their principles. ACT should stick to its traditional recourse to personal responsibility but endeavour to explain to female voters why.
For instance, a popular policy among women is taxpayer-funded Paid Parental Leave.
Wouldn’t it be better to have lower income tax that would enable a new mother to stay home OR to use according to her own priority?
Some of the strongest support I received when campaigning against the DPB was from mothers angry at having to work to pay the taxes for others to stay home indefinitely (with no obvious social benefit to society).
ACT can gain more female support by convincing women that greater freedom and choice doesn’t lie with greater government.
Please share this article so that others can discover The BFD.