ACT and NZ First voters mostly agree, but split hard on trade and immigration

This is the fifth in our series comparing two parties’ voters head to head, and the first one to look inside a governing coalition rather than across the aisle. ACT and New Zealand First govern together, and on the compass both sit further right than every other party we track, National included. The numbers below come from 43 ACT supporters and 43 New Zealand First supporters who answered the KiwiValues survey. Both groups are small, so what follows is about direction, not exact distance: a handful of different respondents could shift either average more than you’d like.

Every question from the biggest-gap and closest-agreement tables, closest agreement at the top and widest gap at the bottom. n = 43 ACT, 43 NZ First.

Both groups here are small, 43 respondents each. You can see exactly who has answered so far. Treat every finding below as directional, not a poll, and lean on the shape of the gap rather than its exact size.

What they agree on

Before getting to trade and immigration, it’s worth saying how much these two groups actually share. On rights, discrimination and identity questions, ACT and New Zealand First voters land in almost the same spot.

Gender identity protections: no daylight between them

Asked whether government should add gender identity and expression as protected classes against discrimination, ACT voters average -0.70 and New Zealand First voters average -0.71. That’s about as close as two averages get.

The government should add gender identity and expression as protected classes against discrimination.

The dot is the group's mean answer; the line spans the middle half of the group's answers, lightly smoothed. n = 86 respondents across both groups.

The justice system: the same read, almost to the decimal

Asked whether the justice system discriminates against ethnic and cultural minorities, ACT voters average -0.66 and New Zealand First voters average -0.71, both disagreeing firmly and both with tight, similar spreads.

Our justice system discriminates against ethnic and cultural minorities.

The dot is the group's mean answer; the line spans the middle half of the group's answers, lightly smoothed. n = 86 respondents across both groups.

The same rough agreement turns up on New Zealand’s colonial history, on government monitoring people’s online activity, on keeping the energy grid renewable, and on whether government should generally protect people’s rights: both groups lean the same way on all four, ACT usually a touch more strongly. They even agree, both leaning toward yes, that Treaty settlements have gone too far in favour of Māori, a question where you might expect a coalition partner with a stronger Māori caucus history to pull the other way.

Where the gap is widest

None of that agreement survives once the questions turn to trade and immigration. The widest gaps we measured between these two groups aren’t about identity or rights at all. They’re about how open the country should be, to goods and to people.

Tariffs: ACT says no, NZ First shrugs toward yes

Asked whether there should be tariffs on imported goods so local businesses can compete, ACT voters disagree, averaging -0.50. New Zealand First voters lean the other way, averaging +0.10, close to neutral but on the agree side. It’s the widest gap we measured between these two groups.

There should be tariffs on imported goods to allow local businesses to compete.

The dot is the group's mean answer; the line spans the middle half of the group's answers, lightly smoothed. n = 86 respondents across both groups.

Immigration: ACT is near neutral, NZ First isn’t

Asked whether the number of people immigrating to New Zealand is too high and should be reduced, ACT voters average +0.17, close to neutral with a real spread of opinion. New Zealand First voters average +0.77, clearly agreeing, and clustered tightly near the top of the scale.

The number of people immigrating to New Zealand is too high and should be reduced.

The dot is the group's mean answer; the line spans the middle half of the group's answers, lightly smoothed. n = 86 respondents across both groups.

Trusting the market on the environment: another straight split

Asked whether the market can’t be trusted to protect the environment and regulations are necessary, ACT voters lean toward disagreeing, averaging -0.25, though with a wide spread. New Zealand First voters lean the other way, averaging +0.31. Neither group is united on this one, but they lean in opposite directions.

The market cannot be trusted to protect the environment and therefore regulations are necessary.

The dot is the group's mean answer; the line spans the middle half of the group's answers, lightly smoothed. n = 86 respondents across both groups.

The same shape, ACT leaning one way and NZ First leaning the other or sitting closer to neutral, shows up on letting private developers build housing faster, on regulating AI more strictly, on teaching religious values in schools, on free school lunches, and on restricting genetic engineering. None of those are questions about trade, which suggests the split runs deeper than tariffs alone: it’s a difference in how much either group trusts an unmanaged market or a hands-off state to get the right outcome.

How sure are we

Both groups here are small and the same size: 43 ACT supporters and 43 New Zealand First supporters. We only call a gap real when the two groups’ confidence intervals don’t overlap, and all three gap findings above clear that bar. The agreement findings are a softer read: both groups landing on the same side of neutral isn’t the same statistical test, so treat those as a shared lean rather than proof the two groups are identical.

We checked the tariffs, immigration and market-regulation splits against an earlier, much larger round of responses, and each pointed the same direction back then too. As with every post in this series, this is a self-selected sample that skews younger and further left than the country as a whole, which matters more here than usual since both groups being compared are on the right of it. You can see exactly who has answered so far.

For how the compass and this kind of comparison are built, see the methodology page.

Want to see where your own answers land? Take the survey at kiwivalues.nz.