Receiving income from NZ Super or Veteran’s pension
0.648
Aged 80-84
0.645
Aged 70-74
0.636
Aged 60-64
0.631
Not studying
0.625
Three children
0.612
Aged 65-69
0.607
Aged 55-59
0.594
Level 6 diploma
0.548
Aged 85+
0.544
Turnout rate
0.524
Working as a technician or trades worker
0.519
European
0.499
Divorced/separated/widowed
0.474
Working in other services
0.468
Aged 50-54
0.458
Level 1 certificate
0.402
Personal income $20,000-$30,000
0.396
Receiving income from self-employment or owning one’s own business
0.377
Voting Sustainable NZ 2020
0.369
Working in construction
0.366
Level 5 diploma
0.366
Working as a manager
0.363
Median age
0.360
Voting Social Credit 2020
0.355
Level 4 certificate
0.354
Working in retail trade
0.347
Working in agriculture, forestry or fishing
0.345
Voting NZ Outdoors Party 2020
0.337
Own house in family trust
0.335
Not in the labour force
0.323
Mean age
0.320
Personal income $30,000-$50,000
0.320
Personal income $50,000-$70,000
0.311
Aged 45-49
0.301
Receiving income from interest, dividends, rent, other investments
0.289
Voting New Zealand First 2020
0.287
Four children
0.258
Level 2 certificate
0.250
Working in manufacturing
0.243
No NZQA qualifications
0.242
Following Christianity
0.240
Receiving income from ACC or private work insurance
0.221
Percentage of voting age population enrolled
0.174
Employed part-time
0.171
Working in mining
0.169
Working in electricity, gas, water or waste services
0.140
Voting Labour 2020
0.134
Voting Advance NZ 2020
0.118
Working in healthcare or social assistance
0.109
Personal income $10,000-$20,000
0.102
Percentage of males in electorate
0.093
Percentage of electorate New Zealand-born
0.071
Working as a labourer
0.070
Working in rental, hiring or real estate services
0.057
Voting Heartland NZ 2020
0.054
Working in wholesale trade
0.051
Following no religion
0.043
Voting ONE Party 2020
0.034
Working as a machinery operator or driver
0.025
Aged 40-44
0.013
Following Spiritualism or a New Age religion
0.012
Working as a clerical or administrative worker
-0.006
Voting The Opportunities Party 2020
-0.051
Five children
-0.066
Percentage of electorate overseas-born
-0.071
Working as a sales worker
-0.086
Percentage of females in electorate
-0.093
Voting TEA Party 2020
-0.100
Enrolled in an urban electorate
-0.104
Personal income $70,000+
-0.108
Employed full-time
-0.130
Object to answering how many children
-0.150
Median personal income
-0.190
Aged 35-39
-0.201
Enrolled in a North Island electorate
-0.206
Asian
-0.208
Following Hinduism
-0.209
Special voting Yes for euthanasia
-0.212
One child
-0.215
Receiving income from Supported Living Payment
-0.216
Following Islam
-0.217
Working in education or training
-0.230
Six or more children
-0.238
Following Buddhism
-0.239
Working in public administration or safety
-0.242
Working in transport, postal or warehousing
-0.248
Pacific Islander
-0.252
Doctorate
-0.253
Honours degree
-0.262
Mean personal income
-0.273
Working in professional, scientific or technical services
-0.294
Working as a community or personal services worker
-0.307
Working in financial or insurance services
-0.311
Voting ALCP 2020
-0.312
Bachelor’s degree
-0.312
Working in accommodation or food services
-0.321
Working as a professional
-0.328
Aged 30-34
-0.332
Voting Greens 2020
-0.352
Working in arts or recreation services
-0.353
Master’s degree
-0.354
Following Judaism
-0.359
Receiving no source of income
-0.364
Following a Maori religion
-0.382
Voting Vision NZ Party 2020
-0.420
Receiving income from Sole Parent Support
-0.427
Receiving income from Jobseeker Support
-0.435
Maori
-0.443
Receiving wage or salary
-0.449
Working in administrative or support services
-0.456
Working in information media or telecommunications
-0.460
Aged 25-29
-0.471
Receiving income from Student Allowance
-0.481
Personal income < $5,000
-0.499
Aged 20-24
-0.523
Personal income $5,000-$10,000
-0.530
No children
-0.536
Part-time study
-0.552
Level 3 certificate
-0.552
Voting Maori Party 2020
-0.573
Enrolled in a Maori electorate
-0.574
Unemployed
-0.578
Full-time study
-0.602
Special voting Yes for cannabis
-0.660
Currently unpartnered
-0.700
Neither ownership of house nor house in family trust
-0.715
Never married
-0.768
*
This table is an excerpt from the upcoming 3rd Edition of Understanding New Zealand, by Dan McGlashan and published by VJM Publishing. Understanding New Zealand is the comprehensive guide to the demographics and voting patterns of the New Zealand people.
It’s common to hear demands nowadays for something called “decolonisation”. Apparently colonisation was the worst thing that ever happened to the peoples of the New World, and justice cannot be served until it is reversed. The media, educational and political machinery of the West is fully behind pushing the term and its logic. But what is it?
Some definitions of decolonisation refer to the colonised nation becoming independent of the colonising power. But this cannot be the sense in which most people use the term, because New Zealand has been independent from Britain for decades already and there are still calls for decolonisation. So the term must mean something else.
In most discourse, ‘decolonisation’ is a synonym for white erasure. This means the systematic removal of all white people and all white culture. It means the destruction of all white institutions – whites must not be allowed to organise in any sense. It means the criminalisation of all pro-white speech, even if spoken in self-defence (see the ‘It’s Okay To Be White‘ saga for proof). It means the demonisation of whites in speech and media (as per Marama Davidson).
Understanding this, it’s possible to look back on historical examples of decolonisation to get some clues about how it works in practice.
The first major example is Haiti. The island contained the first European settlement in the Americas, founded by Christopher Columbus in 1492. The French built it into a sugarcane colony, creating immense wealth from the product of slave labour. At one point, there were some 30,000 French living there and 700,000 African slaves.
Decolonisation came in the form of the Haitian Revolution, beginning in 1791 and ending in 1804. This sentence, from Wikipedia, says it all: “On 1 January 1804, Dessalines, the new leader under the dictatorial 1805 constitution, declared Haiti a free republic in the name of the Haitian people, which was followed by the massacre of the remaining whites.”
A second major example comes from Algeria. A French colony since 1830, Algeria was considered an integral part of France for over a century. Algerian French culture was established enough that it managed to produce a mind as great as that of Albert Camus. After Algeria became independent in 1962, some 800,000 French colonials were driven to France.
The next major example is Rhodesia. The white population of Rhodesia peaked at around 300,000 in the mid-1970s. After the Rhodesian Bush War and the reformation of Rhodesia as Zimbabwe in 1980, wholesale ethnic cleansing began. Between 1980 and 1990, some two-thirds of the white population were driven overseas.
Rhodesia is, along with Haiti and Algeria, an archetypal decolonisation story, in the sense that it ended with the extermination of white settlers. Anyone who thinks that decolonisation is about equity is either dishonest or stupid. The spectre of decolonisation should, if we are thinking clearly, invoke images of mass slaughter and rape.
South Africa is the best major example of ongoing decolonisation today. Since 1993, the year of the referendum that introduced black rule, the white proportion of the population has halved, from 16% to 7.5%. Almost one million white South Africans have been driven overseas, an ethnic cleansing that surpasses Algeria in absolute numbers, if not proportion.
Decolonisation in New Zealand would likely involve a path similar to the places above. There is a sizable number of radicals, aided by the usual communists and fellow travellers, who dream of doing to white New Zealanders what was done to white people in Haiti, Kenya, Algeria, Rhodesia, South Africa and other places. Some of them are influential.
It might be argued that Maoris simply don’t have the numbers to repeat the wholesale ethnic cleansing of Haiti, Algeria or Rhodesia. That may be true, but the main principle of decolonisation is the progressive exclusion of all white people from all positions of power or influence, however long it takes. This can be enacted without needing to win any military victory.
For example, some co-governance arrangements involve a 50:50 powershare between Maori interests and non-Maori interests. This is naturally a form of white erasure because it reduces the proportion of power held by whites, from the 70% befitting their population, to less than 50%.
From there, it’s possible to disenfranchise white people further by awarding scholarships preferentially to non-whites, by reserving spaces in prestigious educational courses specifically for non-whites, requiring some proportion of Government procurement to be made with non-white businesses, funding and promoting non-white arts and media, and dozens of other tactics.
It’s easy to imagine that, after a few decades of this, the situation for New Zealand’s whites would start to look like the situation of South African whites today.
The reason why co-governance is so controversial is that New Zealand’s white majority, consciously or not, can sense that the push for it is motivated by the same sentiments that led to the extermination of white populations elsewhere. As such, resisting co-governance might prove to be a matter of survival.
Decolonisation, in practice, amounts to white erasure. It’s not a sure thing that we will ever read the phrase “massacre of the remaining whites” in the context of New Zealand. However, it’s apparent that there are radical elements in New Zealand who would like to massacre whites, and that there are powerful foreign interests who would like to encourage such a thing in order to destabilise an enemy.
The New Conservative Party had one of the strongest Internet presences of any party leading up to the 2020 General Election. They regularly scored 5%+ in online polls of voting intent. In the actual election, however, they only got 42,613 votes, or 1.5% of the total. This was not enough to win any seats in Parliament.
Variable
Voting New Conservative in 2020
Voting Labour in 2020
0.13
Voting National in 2020
0.68
Voting Greens in 2020
-0.35
Voting ACT in 2020
0.68
Voting New Zealand First in 2020
0.29
Voting TOP in 2020
-0.05
Voting Maori Party in 2020
-0.57
Voting Advance NZ in 2020
0.12
Voting ALCP in 2020
-0.31
Voting Sustainable NZ in 2020
0.37
Voting Social Credit in 2020
0.35
Voting NZ Outdoors Party in 2020
0.34
Unsurprisingly, New Conservative voters were similar to National and ACT voters. The correlations between voting New Conservative in 2020 and voting National in 2020 or voting ACT in 2020 were both 0.68. This reflects that New Conservative is a right-wing party, competing for the same votes as National and ACT.
Although there was a significant positive correlation between voting New Conservative in 2020 and voting New Zealand First in 2020 (0.29), this was not as strong as any of the correlations between voting New Conservative in 2020 and voting Sustainable NZ in 2020 (0.37), voting Social Credit in 2020 (0.35) or voting NZ Outdoors Party in 2020 (0.34).
These positive correlations seem unlikely, given that New Conservative is right-wing and New Zealand First, Sustainable NZ, Social Credit and NZ Outdoors Party are all centrist/leftist. But they can be explained by the fact that all these parties appeal to the relatively disenfranchised, and hence they share demographics on that basis.
The strongest negative correlations were between voting New Conservative in 2020 and voting Maori Party in 2020 (-0.57), voting Vision NZ Party in 2020 (-0.42), voting Greens in 2020 (-0.35) or voting Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party in 2020 (-0.31).
These correlations are easy to explain: New Conservative voters tend to be old and white, whereas Maori Party, Vision NZ Party and ALCP voters tend to be young and brown, and Greens voters tend to be young.
Variable
Voting New Conservative in 2020
European
0.50
Maori
-0.44
Pacific Islander
-0.25
Asian
-0.21
The New Conservatives made a big deal about the racial diversity of their candidates, but their constituency was solidly white. As with the National and ACT parties, there was a significant positive correlation between being of European descent and voting New Conservative in 2020 (0.50).
The negative correlation between being a Pacific Islander and voting New Conservative in 2020 (-0.25) was much weaker than the correlations between being a Pacific Islander and voting either National in 2020 (-0.46) or ACT in 2020 (-0.58). This was mostly down to two major factors: the fact that then-Deputy Leader Elliot Ikilei was conspicuously Polynesian, and the fact that the New Conservatives in general were conspicuously Christian.
The strongest negative correlation between voting New Conservative and belonging to a particular race was with Maoris, at -0.44. This can be explained by the fact that Maoris, who tend to be younger and poorer than the rest of New Zealand, have little incentive to vote for the status quo.
Variable
Voting New Conservative in 2020
No religion
0.04
Buddhism
-0.24
Christianity
0.24
Hinduism
-0.21
Islam
-0.22
Judaism
-0.36
Maori religions
-0.38
Spiritualism and New Age
0.01
Maoris and Jews share very few things in common, but one thing they do share is a significant dislike for voting New Conservative in 2020. The correlation between voting New Conservative in 2020 and following one of the Maori religions was -0.38, and with being a Jew it was -0.36.
The only one religious group to have a positive correlation with voting for the New Conservative Party in 2020 was Christians, and even then the correlation was barely significant (0.24). The irony is that religious people, being conservative, tend to favour the status quo, and therefore they favour the status quo conservative party (National) and not the alternative conservative party (New Conservatives).
This means that the conspiciously Christian branding of the New Conservatives did little to win the votes of mainstream Christians. The Christian fringe, however, were significantly more likely to vote New Conservative in 2020 than vote for other parties.
Variable
Voting New Conservative in 2020
20-24 years old
-0.52
25-29 years old
-0.47
30-34 years old
-0.33
35-39 years old
-0.20
40-44 years old
0.01
45-49 years old
0.30
50-54 years old
0.46
55-59 years old
0.59
60-64 years old
0.63
65-69 years old
0.61
70-74 years old
0.64
75-79 years old
0.65
80-84 years old
0.65
85+ years old
0.54
Like most reactionary parties around the world, New Conservative voters were old. There was a significant positive correlation between voting New Conservative in 2020 and belonging to any age bracket above 45 years old. All of the age brackets between 60 and 84 years old had a positive correlation of at least 0.60 with voting New Conservative in 2020.
The correlation between voting New Conservative in 2020 and belonging to a particular age bracket became more and more positive as age increases, from the 20-24 age bracket (where it is -0.52) all the way up to the 60-64 age bracket (where it is 0.63). Older age brackets were consistently strong supporters of New Conservative.
The obvious reason for this is that young people don’t like conservatism. They are much less likely to own homes or to earn a wage that they can one day buy a home with. As such, they are not incentivised to support the status quo. Moreover, young people are much less likely to be Christian.
Variable
Voting New Conservative in 2020
Being male
0.09
The correlation between voting New Conservative in 2020 and being male was not significant, at 0.09. This was however the third highest proportion of male voters of all parties. Only voting Heartland NZ in 2020 (0.11) and voting Outdoors NZ in 2020 (0.22) had stronger positive correlations with being male.
This accords with data from other countries, where conservative parties regularly get a higher proportion of male voters. This is usually because male voters tend to have higher incomes, but this is not the case for New Conservative voters. This is further evidence that New Conservative voters were motivated by social conservatism more than economic conservatism.
Variable
Voting New Conservative in 2020
Median income
-0.19
Mean income
-0.27
One major way in which New Conservative voters differ from National and ACT voters is income. There is a significant positive correlation between mean income and voting either National or ACT in 2020, but a significant negative correlation between mean income and voting New Conservative in 2020.
This suggests a paradox: New Conservative voters vote for the right-wing, which usually favours those with money, despite that New Conservative voters don’t have much money themselves. This paradox can be resolved by referencing the fact that New Conservative voters tend to be religious and so, like low-income Americans who vote for right-wing parties, they tend to be values voters.
Variable
Voting New Conservative 2020
Not studying
0.63
Wage or salary
-0.45
Interest, dividends, rent or other investments
0.29
NZ Super or Veteran’s pension
0.65
Student Allowance
-0.48
New Conservative voters might not have a high income (the correlation between voting New Conservative in 2020 and mean income was -0.27), but they are comfortable and secure by many measures. For example, there was a significant positive correlation between voting New Conservative in 2020 and receiving NZ Super or a Veteran’s pension (0.65) or receiving income through interest, dividends, rent or other investments (0.29).
By contrast, there was a strong negative correlation between voting New Conservative in 2020 and receiving a wage or salary (-0.45). This wasn’t because students vote for them either: there was a correlation of 0.63 between voting New Conservative in 2020 and not studying, and also a significant negative correlation of -0.48 between voting New Conservative in 2020 and being on the Student Allowance.
It seems that New Conservative is, to a large extent, a pensioner’s party. They seem to attract many of the conservative old people who are more Christian, rather than the more ethnonationalist, who tend to prefer New Zealand First.
Variable
Voting New Conservative 2020
Own or part own house
0.71
Neither own house nor family trust
-0.71
New Conservative voters were very likely to own their own homes – the correlation between voting for them in 2020 and owning or part-owning a house was 0.71. In this sense, New Conservative voters also suffer from the “too much time on the Internet” phenomenon that affected Advance NZ voters. This explains why both parties got so few votes in comparison to the size of their Internet presence.
The correlation between receiving NZ Super or a Veteran’s Pension and owning or part-owning a house was 0.79, one of the strongest correlations in the whole Understanding New Zealand dataset. This explains why New Conservative voters tend to own their own houses despite being low-income.
Variable
Voting New Conservative in 2020
No qualifications
0.24
Level 1 certificate
0.40
Level 2 certificate
0.25
Level 3 certificate
-0.55
Level 4 certificate
0.35
Level 5 diploma
0.37
Level 6 diploma
0.55
Bachelor’s degree
-0.31
Honours degree
-0.26
Master’s degree
-0.35
Doctorate
-0.25
As with Advance NZ, there was a significant negative correlation between voting New Conservative in 2020 and having any of the university degrees. These negative correlations were not as strong as they were for Advance NZ, however.
The most likely to vote New Conservative in 2020 were those with a level 6 diploma – the correlation here was 0.55. The reason for this is the strong support for the New Conservatives among tradesmen who have completed training at polytechnic – the correlation between voting New Conservative in 2020 and being a technician or trades worker was 0.52.
That New Conservative voters might be poorly educated is not a surprise to those who have observed similar Christian fundamentalist movements in other countries. The New Conservative’s message was primarily based on fear, and fear-based messaging primarily appeals to the poorly educated. This explains the constant hysteria about homosexuality and cannabis use.
Variable
Voting New Conservative in 2020
Working in agriculture, forestry or fishing
0.34
Working in mining
0.17
Working in manufacturing
0.24
Working in electricity, gas, water or wastewater
0.14
Working in construction
0.37
Working in wholesale trade
0.05
Working in retail trade
0.35
Working in accommodation or food services
-0.32
Working in transport, postal or warehousing
-0.25
Working in information media and telecommunications
-0.46
Working in financial and insurance services
-0.31
Working in rental, hiring and real estate services
0.06
Working in professional, scientific and technical services
-0.29
Working in administrative and support services
-0.46
Working in public administration and safety
-0.24
Working in education and training
-0.23
Working in healthcare and social assistance
0.11
Working in arts and recreation services
-0.35
Fittingly, then, the party was heavily represented among those working in masculine industries.
There was a significant positive correlation between voting New Conservative in 2020 and working in construction (0.37) or working in agriculture, forestry and fishing (0.34). There was also a significant negative correlation between voting New Conservative in 2020 and working in administrative and support services (-0.46), being a community and personal service worker (-0.31) or working in public administration and safety (-0.24).
These correlations don’t reflect the relatively poor educational levels of New Conservative voters so much as they reflect a particularly object-orientated social approach. New Conservative voters appear to be disinclined towards working with people, and prefer working with things. This is typical for masculine groups.
Variable
Voting New Conservative in 2020
Working as a manager
0.36
Working as a professional
-0.33
Working as a technician or trades worker
0.52
Working as a community or personal services worker
-0.31
Working as clerical or administrative worker
-0.01
Working as a sales worker
-0.09
Working as a machinery operator or driver
0.02
Working as a labourer
0.07
The occupation in which one is least likely to find a New Conservative voter is professional. The correlation between voting New Conservative in 2020 and being a professional was significantly negative, at -0.33. This reflects multiple factors, but in particular the poor education of New Conservative voters.
The correlation between voting New Conservative in 2020 and working as a manager was significantly positive, at 0.36. This is primarily a function of two things. One, managers tend to be older than average, like New Conservative voters. Two, managers don’t need to be well-educated to perform in their roles, just committed.
Some might be suprised to read that the correlation between voting New Conservative in 2020 and working as a technician or trades worker (0.52) was so much stronger than the correlations between voting that was and working as as machinery operator or driver (0.02) or as a labourer (0.07) were much weaker.
This can be explained by age. New Conservative voters, as discussed above, tend to be old. Few old people can cut it as labourers, or even as machinery operators and drivers. But there are many old people working as technicians or trades workers. The trades are well-known for appealing to youngsters on account of that many of their workers will soon retire.
Variable
Voting New Conservative 2020
Has no children
-0.54
Has one child
-0.21
Has two children
0.65
Has three children
0.61
Has four children
0.26
Has five children
-0.07
Has six or more children
-0.24
The correlations between voting New Conservative in 2020 and having children are the strongest for having two children (0.65) or having three children (0.61). This is not surprising given the age of New Conservative voters. Those who have no children, or only one, tend to be much younger and less religious.
Being mostly white, New Conservative voters are significantly less likely to have six or more children. The correlation between voting New Conservative in 2020 and having six or more children was -0.24. The correlation between voting National in 2020 and having six or more children was, however, -0.59, so New Conservative voters are relatively fecund by that measure.
In summary, New Conservative voters represent a kind of old-school masculinity that perhaps hasn’t adjusted well to changing times. This is best shown by the strong negative correlation of -0.66 between voting New Conservative in 2020 and casting a special vote for Yes in the cannabis referendum.
New Conservative voters tend to be old, white, male, poorly educated and Christian. As such, they are very much the same demographic targeted by the American Republican Party in their “Southern Strategy”. Such voters are not as numerous in New Zealand as in America, but there might still be enough of them to get New Conservative over the 5% in 2023.
*
This article is an excerpt from the upcoming 3rd Edition of Understanding New Zealand, by Dan McGlashan and published by VJM Publishing. Understanding New Zealand is the comprehensive guide to the demographics and voting patterns of the New Zealand people.
The use of cannabis in human history as a spiritual tool dates back thousands of years. In many cultures, the plant has been considered sacred and has held a significant place in religious practices. Despite its controversial status in today’s society, cannabis was once regarded as a holy sacrament, offering those who consumed it a gateway to higher spiritual states.
Cannabis has been used in various forms throughout history. Its earliest recorded uses date back to ancient China and India. In China, the plant was considered one of the “50 fundamental herbs” and was used extensively in traditional medicine. In India, cannabis was considered sacred under the name “bhang”, and it was considered an essential element of Indian religious practices.
In Hinduism, Lord Shiva is often depicted holding a “chillum”, a clay pipe used to smoke cannabis. It is believed that Shiva would consume cannabis before meditating, as it helped to quiet his mind and achieve a heightened state of consciousness.
Similarly, in the Elementalist religion, cannabis, or “ganja”, holds a central role in their spiritual practices. Elementalists believe that the plant is a sacrament, given to them by God, to promote relaxation, calmness, and increase spiritual awareness. They use it as an aid in meditation and prayer, to gain insight into their relationship with the divine and to connect with their inner selves.
Native American tribes also incorporated the use of cannabis in their spiritual rituals. The Lakota tribe, for example, used cannabis as part of their vision quests. During these quests, individuals would consume cannabis to enter a trance-like state and seek guidance from the spirit world.
In addition to spiritual practices, cannabis has played a crucial role in modern religions such as Elementalism and the Church of the Universe. These religions view cannabis as a means of connecting with the divine and achieving a higher state of consciousness.
The spiritual use of cannabis is not limited to religious practices. It has also been used as a tool for self-exploration and personal growth. Many individuals who consume cannabis report experiencing feelings of euphoria, a sense of connectedness with the universe, and heightened creativity. These experiences often lead individuals to question their place in the world and their relationship with the divine.
However, it is important to note that the spiritual use of cannabis is not without controversy. Some argue that the plant’s psychoactive properties can lead to abuse and addiction, ultimately hindering an individual’s spiritual development through creating an attachment to the material world.
Despite these criticisms, the spiritual use of cannabis persists among many individuals and religious communities around the world. In recent years, there has been a growing movement to legalise cannabis, driven in part by those who view its use as a spiritual right.
This movement has gained momentum as more individuals and communities have begun to recognize the therapeutic benefits of cannabis. The plant is now used to treat a variety of medical conditions such as chronic pain, epilepsy, and anxiety. As more research is conducted on its potential as a therapeutic tool, it is possible that the spiritual use of cannabis will become more widely accepted and recognized.
In conclusion, the spiritual use of cannabis in human history is a complex topic. For many cultures and religions, cannabis was considered a sacred plant capable of promoting spiritual growth and personal development. Although it is mostly prohibited today, many millions still use it to gain spiritual insight.
*
Vince McLeod is the author of The Case For Cannabis Law Reform, the comprehensive collection of arguments for ending cannabis prohibition.
