New Zealand election: polls give Bill English reasons to be cheerful despite 'Jacinda effect'

Clothed in a khaki oilskin to protect him from a furious downpour, Bill English has turned up at the suburban Benedict’s cafe in Maungaraki on the outskirts of Wellington for chitchat and a coffee.

There are hand-knitted jumpers for sale and smudgy prints on the wall, and the New Zealand prime minister orders a cappuccino before moving through the assembled supporters – children, mothers and the over-60s, mostly, this weekday morning.

The last two polls before Saturday’s closely contested general election have shown English’s National party seven to 10 points ahead of opposition Labour. English is also ahead as the preferred prime minister, so his mood is buoyant as he ambles among the tables, which smell of yeast and wet wool.

He ruffles children’s hair and takes pictures with supporters who don’t bother to ask about National’s policies or how his party can help them because they’ve already had nine years of government to judge.

“I just want things to stay the same. I think National has been doing a very good job and I like the status quo,” says Danielle Chamberlain, who has brought her sausage dog, Robbie, along, his long, slinky body clothed in a snuggly blue jumper emblazoned with the National logo.

“I don’t want [Labour’s] water taxes and I feel Labour is dividing the country between the farmers and the town vote; I don’t like that at all. Bill is safe; I like that. He holds the money well.”

Seven weeks ago Labour’s Jacinda Ardern, charismatic but untested as a political figurehead, took over her party’s leadership.

Almost overnight Labour’s popularity surged in the polls and the “Jacinda effect” was born – packed-out rallies around the country, celebrity-level adulation and the first genuine threat to National’s government in close to a decade.

But in recent days, as Saturday’s voting day approaches, the polls appear to have swung back to the incumbent.

At Benedict’s, the “mania” for Labour’s Ardern and the predicted “youthquake” may as well have never existed. The blue National bus is parked up in the rain, ready to embark on the final two days of campaigning as English heads north along the rural spine of New Zealand, dropping into two suburban shopping malls, two banks, and a bustling pharmacy (there’s also a media appearance outside a petrol station).

At the Johnsonville shopping centre he perches on a faux-leather sofa placed on fake grass to be interviewed by a local television station. Watching on from Black Pepper women’s clothing store is Valda Gillies, who has voted National all her life and plans to until she dies.

When English rises to leave Gillies applauds him on alone, the sharp slap of her palms echoing in the cavernous mall.

“He has got the experience, and I think there is no way I would vote for Labour at the moment, she [Ardern] may be quite a nice little lady but she’s got no experience behind her,” says Gillies.

“There will always be people that are sleeping in cars, poverty is there for ever, but he has done a lot. Poverty has got worse, of course, but he’s done a lot … it doesn’t matter who gets in; they’ll still have the same problem.”

Born in the deep south, English is trusted and welcomed to the tip of the far north; venom has rarely been directed his way, his low-key, pragmatic approach tending to keep him out of the limelight.

While he was finance minister and deputy prime minister, New Zealanders grew accustomed to seeing his face on the 6 o’clock news, presiding over three terms of economic stability and growth – the no-nonense former farmer with six kids and a wife he courted at university while studying English literature and commerce.

Predictable and familiar, English’s support base is among farmers and older voters – and even if they don’t attend his events or rallies, their support is quietly waiting for voting day.

“Keep doing what you’re doing, keep things the same,” nods a supporter at the Coastlands Mall, sprawled along the edge of State Highway 1 on the Kapiti coast.

“How’s business going?” asks English to the two dozen supporters assembled outside the ANZ bank, a subdued cheer-squad made up almost exclusively of white-haired voters.

“How’s business going, growth good?” English asks again at the the Westpac Bank, where he is presented with a gift of three tins of spaghetti from an employee who also enjoys the prime minister’s signature dish.

“We’ve got rising house prices, a lot of people renovating. It is really good, we’ve got growth,” replies a bank employee, handing him a copy of the Kapiti coast economic report.

“We’ll keep that up,” replies English. “It’s just going to keep growing.”

At the final leaders’ debate this week, Ardern accused English of discovering poverty “last week”, and since Ardern’s nomination on 1 August and her longstanding pledge to end child poverty, a noticeable shift has occurred in National’s strategy.

While continuing to push hard on their economic and infrastructure goals, a softer tone has entered the rhetoric too, with English vowing to pull 100,000 New Zealand children out of poverty in the next two to three years if he is elected to govern again.

It is a pledge that has emerged at the last hour – nine years into National’s leadership – but as polling day nears, English and his team are pushing their social investment approach to stamping out poverty full-throttle.

“I think what you can see with Bill English is a real passion and drive and commitment to some of those hard-edged social problems that previous governments have put in the too-hard basket,” says Chris Bishop, a National MP, when asked about the government’s newfound willingness to acknowledge and discuss child poverty.

“We’ve [National] spent nine years dealing with the global financial crisis and then the earthquakes, but now we have the tools because of the use of technology and data to really tackle some of these problems such as material deprivation in an innovative way.”

Besides its nascent interest in child poverty, National is campaigning on its track record of economic stability and growth, promising a crackdown on gangs, drugs and beneficiaries, and continuing to invest in the country’s roads and transport links, especially in Auckland.

But at the Life Pharmacy at Coastlands Mall the votes for English are looking locked in without the need for persuasion or sweet-talk as he presents a heart-shaped cake iced with a blue N to the manager of the pharmacy, one of the biggest drug dispensaries in New Zealand.

“I’ll have to vote for you now you’ve given me this cake,” says the pharmacy manager.

“It’s a bit risky otherwise, my girls all want to get paid next week,” she continues, indicating the female pharmacists behind her and alluding to National’s accusation that Labour’s fiscal plan is more than NZ$11bn (£6bn) short of cash, a claim that not a single economist in New Zealand has backed.

“Yep, it’s a bit risky otherwise,” murmurs English. “Don’t worry, everything will be back to normal on Monday.”