About the polling companies

• The Roy Morgan Government Confidence Rating has been going for almost 15 years since August 2007. They started polling twice monthly (once in December), took a break in 2018-2019 after the 2017 election, and now poll monthly. They show the rating against a 100=neutral scale (like their Consumer Confidence research). We have decided to use a 0=neutral scale.

“Electors were asked: “Generally speaking, do you feel that things in NZ are heading in the right direction or would you say things are seriously heading in the wrong direction?” #Roy Morgan GCR = Roy Morgan Government Confidence Rating (The Roy Morgan GCR is 100 plus the difference between the percentage of Kiwis who say the country is “heading in the right direction” and the percentage who say the country is “seriously heading in the wrong direction”).

• The Taxpayers’ Union Curia Country Direction metric has been going since the start of 2021. They also poll monthly, and use the same “right direction” versus “wrong direction” questioning. The key difference is that they show the rating on a 0=neutral scale, like our graph above.
• As you can see, the Roy Morgan and Curia results are remarkably similar. There are three reasons why we have left them separate on the graph and not combined them into one score:
  • So that you can see how consistent their scores are with each other.
  • To avoid any criticism of bias/data manipulation.
  • Their polling dates are also different each month, and good or bad PR for a Government can quickly swing Government ratings.
• Talbot Mills also measures Government Confidence but:
  • This is a private paid service and not publicly available.
  • The limited data we have seen is inconsistent with Roy Morgan and Curia’s.
• Newshub-Reid, One News-Kantar, and IPSOS do not appear to poll for Government Confidence. If they do, we will update the graph in a future release.

Curia trends

• Curia’s polling has shown consistent straight-line trends since it begun in January 2021:
  • “Right direction” is consistently decreasing
  • “Wrong direction” is consistently increasing
  • “Net direction” is consistently decreasing as a result
• See https://www.taxpayers.org.nz/taxpayers_union_curia_poll_june_2022 for their graph

Roy Morgan highs and lows over 15 years

• The Labour Government’s response from the beginning of the Covid lockdown measures, and throughout 2020 and early 2021, dominates the highest right direction scores. Only one score from the National-led Government’s GFC response period is in the top five:
  • 77% = Labour, March 30 – April 26, 2020
  • 75% = Labour, April 27 – May 24, 2020
  • 72% = Labour, May 25 – June 21, 2020
  • 72% = National, September 21 – October 4, 2009
  • 71.5% = Labour, June 29 – July 26, 2020
  • 71.5% = Labour, Nov. 23 – Dec. 13, 2020
  • 71.5% = Labour, January 4-24, 2021
    
• The highest Government Confidence scores are also from these same periods:
  • 63% = Labour, March 30 – April 26, 2020
  • 58.5% = Labour, April 27 – May 24, 2020
  • 55.5% = National, September 21 – October 4, 2009
  • 53.5% = Labour, May 25 – June 21, 2020
  • 53.5% = Labour, Nov. 23 – Dec. 13, 2020
  • 53.5% = Labour, January 4-24, 2021
• The three worst wrong direction scores have all come in the last three months. These are the first occasions where 50% of those polled said the country was heading in the wrong direction. (The Curia June polling has also hit 50% wrong direction for the first time.). The next highest wrong direction scores were for Helen Clark’s Labour-led Government in June-July 2008.
  • 51.5% = Labour, February 28 – March 27, 2022
  • 50% = Labour, May (exact polling dates not published yet)
  • 49.5% = Labour, March 28 – April 24, 2022
  • 49.5% = Labour, June 30 – July 13, 2008
  • 49% = Labour, June 16-29, 2008
• The lowest Government Confidence scores are also from these same June-July 2008 and March-May 2022 periods: 
  • -13% = Labour, June 30 – July 13, 2008
  • -12.5% = Labour, February 28 – March 27, 2022
  • -12% = Labour, June 16-29, 2008
  • -10% = Labour, May (exact polling dates not published yet)
  • -8.5% = Labour, July 14-27, 2008

Full data analysis
Please contact us if you would like the full analysis as the table is far too large to insert into the content here.

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How does the Government improve voter confidence from here?

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Other notes:

• All publicly available data has been published.
• We have received permission from both Roy Morgan and Curia to share this data.
• For the polling date, we have used:
  • The median polling date if provided by the polling companies, otherwise
  • The median date in the polling range. If there are two median dates for an even number of days, we have used the earlier day.
• There was no Roy Morgan poll in December 2015
• Additional notes from Roy Morgan and Curia can be found in the data source pages below.
• All numbers are provisional and subject to revision.

Thank you to Roy Morgan, The Taxpayers’ Union, Curia, and the Factors who helped pull this together.

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SOURCES:

Roy Morgan May = https://www.roymorgan.com/findings/8974-nz-national-voting-intention-may-2022-202206070538
Roy Morgan all time = http://www.roymorgan.com/morganpoll/new-zealand/nz-government-confidence

Curia June = https://www.taxpayers.org.nz/taxpayers_union_curia_poll_june_2022

(c) Copyright Roy Morgan
(c) Copyright Taxpayers’ Union
(c) Copyright Curia Market Research

Republished under permission

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