This is the third in the series that looks at one policy topic at a time instead of putting two parties side by side, after housing and cities and tax and wealth. Welfare and work holds three statements: whether a universal basic income is a good idea, whether primary schools should give every child a free lunch, and whether a shorter working week, of around 32 hours, is a good idea.
The numbers below come from 703 responses split across six parties’ voters: 237 Greens, 196 OPP, 156 Labour, 43 ACT, 43 NZ First and 28 National. Unlike the previous two pieces in this series, none of these three statements is newer than the others, so every party clears the bar needed to be plotted on all three. Nobody is left off a chart in this post.
The sample leans left out of all proportion. Among respondents who named which party they voted for at the last election, Greens, OPP, Labour and Te Pāti Māori together make up 80% of the answers, against 44% of the actual 2023 party vote, and National-leaning respondents are close to absent. Read the right-hand side of every chart below as the answers of a few dozen people rather than a settled picture of what ACT, NZ First or National voters think about welfare and work. The sample composition page charts the skew against the Electoral Commission’s result and updates as responses arrive.
The same two blocs split every statement. By a shorter work week, only ACT is still opposed.
As with every piece in this series, this is a self-selected sample that skews younger and more online than the country as a whole, so treat it as directional, not a poll. ACT, NZ First and National are the smallest groups here, at 43, 43 and 28 respondents, so read their numbers as direction rather than exact position. You can see exactly who has answered so far.
The same two blocs, statement after statement
On all three statements in this topic, Greens, OPP and Labour voters average on the agree side and ACT, NZ First and National voters average on the disagree side. That holds without exception here, which is different from tax and wealth, where a land value tax broke the pattern on one of its four statements. What changes from statement to statement in this topic is not which side each party lands on, but how firmly the right bloc holds its position.
A universal basic income: Labour breaks softer than the rest of the left
ACT posts its strongest disagreement of the whole topic here, averaging -0.59 with 84% of its voters disagreeing and only 9% agreeing. NZ First (-0.30) and National (-0.44) disagree too, though less emphatically. On the other side, OPP voters are the most enthusiastic about this one, 90% agreeing for a mean of +0.65, and Greens voters are close behind at +0.53. Labour voters are the outlier within the left bloc: a mean of +0.25, with 22% disagreeing outright, a noticeably softer position than either Greens or OPP.
A universal basic income is a good idea.
Free school lunches: the widest gap in the topic, and the right’s first crack
This is the widest party spread of the three statements, 1.34 points from ACT to Greens. Greens voters are close to unanimous, 97% agreeing for a mean of +0.80, with Labour (+0.60) and OPP (+0.53) both firmly on the agree side too. ACT still disagrees clearly, -0.54 with 79% disagreeing. But NZ First and National are already much softer than ACT here: NZ First averages -0.07 (35% agree, 49% disagree) and National -0.18 (36% agree, 61% disagree), both far closer to a coin flip than to ACT’s clear rejection.
Children in primary education should recieve free lunches at public schools.
Where the right’s opposition disappears
Asked about a shorter working week of around 32 hours, the left bloc is still clearly in favour: Greens +0.68, OPP +0.45, Labour +0.42. This is the narrowest party spread of the three statements, 0.89 points, and the reason is entirely on the right. ACT still lands on the disagree side, -0.22 with 56% disagreeing, but far more mildly than on the other two statements. NZ First (-0.01) and National (-0.02) are, for practical purposes, neutral: NZ First splits 42% agree to 40% disagree, and National 39% to 43%, both close to an even split within the group. Of the three statements in this topic, this is the one where “two blocs” barely describes the right’s side any more. ACT is the only party still holding a real position against it.
A shorter work week (E.g 32 hour weeks) is a good idea.
Universal basic income and free school lunches separate the parties best together
Of the three possible pairs in this topic, this one pulls the parties furthest apart when both statements go on one plot, further than either statement manages on its own.
Labour’s dot is the clearest sign of what the two statements pick up separately. It sits well clear of ACT and the rest of the right bloc on both statements. Across the bottom, universal basic income, it trails Greens and OPP by a long way, matching its softer +0.25 there. Up the side, free school lunches, it is right among them: its +0.60 sits between Greens’ +0.80 and OPP’s +0.53.
Which statements move together
Across everyone who answered, all three statements correlate with each other at similar strength: free school lunches and a shorter working week are the strongest pair at +0.52, universal basic income and free school lunches follow at +0.50, and universal basic income and a shorter working week are the weakest pair at +0.42. None of the three is redundant with another, but none stands apart either.
As with tax and wealth, a correlation measured across the whole sample partly reflects the gap between parties rather than anything happening inside them. Within Greens voters alone, the strongest pair here falls from +0.52 to +0.11, and averaged across all three pairs the within-Greens correlation runs 0.36 lower than the whole-sample one. Welfare and work looks like one coherent dimension mostly because the parties are so far apart on it, not because individual voters treat the three statements as one question.
Where welfare and work sits on the compass
All three statements pull in almost the same direction: a substantial pull toward the left and barely any pull up or down. Universal basic income carries the strongest left-right pull of the three, free school lunches is close behind, and a shorter working week is the mildest of the three but still clearly on the same axis. None of them separates the parties on the libertarian-authoritarian axis the way a land value tax did in the tax and wealth topic; this topic does its work almost entirely on the left-right axis, which blends economic and social views rather than being purely one or the other.
How sure are we
Three of these six groups are large enough that their averages are fairly settled: Greens (237), OPP (196) and Labour (156). ACT (43), NZ First (43) and National (28) are much smaller, so read those three as direction rather than exact distance throughout, especially on the shorter working week statement, where NZ First and National sit close enough to neutral that a slightly different sample could move either of them to either side of the line.
As with every piece in this series, this is a self-selected sample that skews younger and more online than the country as a whole, and it leans much further left than the country does. You can see exactly who has answered so far.
For how the compass and this kind of breakdown are built, see the methodology page.
Want to see where your own answers land? Take the survey at kiwivalues.nz.