OPP voters sit left of centre, lean a little libertarian and back a land value tax
More than everyone else in this survey, they also back a universal basic income, and they reject the idea that coalitions are worse than majority governments. Scroll down to see where they sit and why, one step at a time. Part 1 is what OPP voters think, part 2 is how they choose a party, and part 3 is who they are.
This survey is not a poll. The people who took it are younger, more online and further left than New Zealand as a whole. An OPP voter here is a person who said they would vote for the Opportunity Party if there was an election today.
The live compass has changed since this page was built. The party dots show the latest positions, but the hexagons, the ellipse and the step text can lag behind them.
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Part 1 of 3: What OPP voters think
Step 1 of 15
Most people in this survey sit left of centre
Each hexagon is a small area of the compass. A brighter hexagon holds more people. An area with only a few people stays empty.
The crosshair is the political centre. It is the average of the party dots, weighted by each party's share of the 2023 vote. About four in five of the 854 people sit left of it, so this survey leans left.
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Step 2 of 15
OPP voters spread out, but most sit left of centre
204 of these people would vote OPP today. Their hexagons now show in the OPP colour.
The ellipse holds about half of them (52%). It is wide, because OPP voters do not all answer the same way.
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Step 3 of 15
The OPP dot sits close to the Labour dot
The OPP dot is the average position of OPP voters.
45% of OPP voters sit nearest the OPP dot, and the rest sit nearer another party's dot. This is common: a party dot is an average, and only 42% of Labour voters sit nearest the Labour dot.
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Step 4 of 15
What sets OPP voters apart
These are the statements where OPP voters take a clear side, few of them take the other side, and their average answer is furthest from everyone else's. OPP voters back a land value tax (80% agree); back a universal basic income (91% agree); reject the idea that coalitions are worse than majority governments (78% disagree); want citizens more involved in big political discussions (90% agree); and favour rehabilitation over punishment (90% agree).
On a land value tax, a universal basic income, coalition government and citizens' assemblies, they also go further than Labour and Greens voters, whose dots sit nearest. On the other, Greens voters lean the same way, about as strongly or more.
Each arrow shows how far one of them moves the OPP dot away from everyone else's average.
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Step 5 of 15
No single statement puts OPP voters where they are
Start at the pale ring, where someone neutral on every statement sits, and add each statement's pull as one link, big ones first, with the ones that pull back fitted in along the way. The chain ends next to the OPP dot, at the average of the OPP voters in this survey.
The longest link, on religion in schools, makes less than a tenth of the chain. The thick links are the statements from step 4. Together they make only about a seventh of it, so many small pulls make the rest.
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Step 6 of 15
On the third axis, OPP voters lean only a little toward "more left on economy"
This axis compares a person's economic views with their culture views. Compared with most people, OPP voters' economic views are further left than their culture views. Their bar overlaps everyone else's a lot.
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Step 7 of 15
What OPP voters nearly all agree on
On these five statements, almost all OPP voters are on the same side. Each bar shows the share who disagree, are neutral or agree.
96% agree that the market cannot protect the environment without rules. 94% agree that Māori culture is important to New Zealand. 92% agree that we should build more apartments and townhouses in our cities.
93% disagree that public schools should instil religious values. The same share disagree that marriage can only be between a man and a woman.
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Step 8 of 15
OPP voters split on the voting age and whether Māori should get preferential treatment
An average can hide a split. On these three statements, OPP voters are on both sides. Each bar shows the share who disagree, are neutral or agree.
50% agree that the voting age should be lowered, and 41% disagree. 38% agree that Māori should not get preferential treatment, and 44% disagree.
On cutting regulations and red tape, the two sides are close: 42% disagree, and 38% agree.
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Step 9 of 15
Nine in ten OPP voters disagree that New Zealand is on the right track
One question asks about the country today: is New Zealand on the right track? Each bar shows how a group answered, from strongly disagree on the left to strongly agree on the right.
90% of OPP voters disagree, and 37% disagree strongly. Everyone else mostly disagrees too (78%), and about as strongly: 37% strongly disagree, and 9% agree.
Too few OPP voters strongly agree to show each answer on its own, so the dashed part of their bar holds both.
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Part 2 of 3: How OPP voters choose
Step 10 of 15
More than half of OPP voters also voted OPP in 2023
Each ribbon is a group of people. The left side is how they voted in 2023, and the right side is how they would vote today. We draw only the ribbons into or out of OPP.
57% of today's OPP voters also voted OPP in 2023. Most of the rest voted Green (17%), voted Labour (10%) or did not vote (9%).
Of the people who voted OPP in 2023, 63% would vote OPP again. 17% now pick Labour and 12% pick the Greens.
Many more people here say they voted OPP in 2023 than the real result shows.
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Step 11 of 15
About seven in ten OPP voters also rank Labour and the Greens in their top three
The survey asks people to rank their top three parties. 200 OPP voters did this, and 95% of them put OPP first.
The pale bar is the share who put a party anywhere in their top three. The solid bar is the share for whom that party is the next choice after OPP.
70% put Labour in their top three, and for 38% Labour is the next choice. The Greens are in the top three of 69%, and the next choice for 44%. National is in the top three of 14%, and the next choice for 4%.
Very few rank ACT or the New Conservative Party.
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Step 12 of 15
More than half of people rank OPP in their top three, about two and a half times as many as would vote for them
This step turns the last one around. It asks who puts OPP in their top three.
Each square is 1 in 100 people who ranked parties. 25 in 100 would vote for OPP today. 58 in 100 put OPP somewhere in their top three.
57% of Labour voters, 47% of Greens voters, about 40% of National voters and about 30% of NZ First voters rank OPP in their top three. Very few ACT voters do.
This survey leans left, so 58% is far higher than New Zealand as a whole would give.
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Part 3 of 3: Who OPP voters are
Step 13 of 15
Fewer OPP voters rent
25% of OPP voters rent, against 34% of everyone else. More of them own a home with a mortgage: 39%, against 32%.
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Step 14 of 15
More OPP voters live elsewhere in the North Island
25% of OPP voters live elsewhere in the North Island, against 14% of everyone else. Fewer of them live in Wellington: 39%, against 44%.
Wellington is over-represented in this survey: 44% of everyone else here live there. The area comes from the electorate people gave, so people on the Māori roll are not in it.
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Step 15 of 15
Where do you sit?
Answer the same 60 statements and see where your own dot lands among the party dots. It takes about ten minutes.
The numbers behind the diagram
The same information as the diagram, as tables. Positions come from the live compass. Everything else is an average or a share for a whole group.
Show the tables
The tables need JavaScript.
How we did this
Your answer to a statement, times that statement's weight on each axis, moves your dot. The party dots come from the live compass. The rest uses the answers as of the date at the top.
A statement counts in step 4 if OPP voters lean clearly one way on average, at most a quarter of them take the other side, and their average is clearly further their way than everyone else's (by at least 0.4 of a standard deviation). Those where they also go further than the voters of both nearest parties come first, then those where they go further than one. The step always shows five: where fewer clear that bar, it takes the next ones over a lower bar and says so. Each arrow is the gap between the two groups' average answers, times the weights. The chain in step 5 uses the OPP averages alone.
Parts 2 and 3 use the survey's other questions: the 2023 vote, the ranked top three, the right-track question, living situation and electorate. Part 3 shows only the breakdowns where OPP voters differ clearly from everyone else (a statistical test says the gap is unlikely to be chance), so pages for different parties show different ones.
We publish only group averages, shares and counts of whole groups, and we hide a share that rests on too few people. Where too few people gave an answer, we show it together with the answer next to it, or in "Other", and we leave out a group that is too small to compare. A breakdown in part 3 has the same groups on every page, and we show it only where each of its groups has enough people.
The methodology page has the rest. Who votes OPP? has more on this group.
KiwiValues is an independent survey and does not support or oppose any party. Where a party sits here describes how its voters answered, not how anyone should vote.