are NZers extremist?

There was an interesting conversation going on on National Radio tonight which I only heard a snippet on. They (Raybon Kan and some other people, Kim Hill, Gaylene Preston, Russell Brown I think) were discussing whether NZers are liberal and Kan raised his theory that in fact we are extremists who lurch from one extreme to the other. Eg the radical change in the mid 80s from a "socialist paradise" (their words not mine) to everything being deregulated in a very short space of time.

I was thinking about this in the context of the Civil Unions Bill debate. I had assumed that there are a relatively small group of people at the extremes on this issue and then everyone else sort of floats around in the middle, tending towards one end (the pro CUB side if the polls are indicative) but maybe that is too simplistic. After all polls don't tend to measure strength of opinion, just measure them in black and whites - "for" or "against", rather than "die in a ditch", "mildly in favour," "slightly against," "I will flee these shores if this passes."

Perhaps there are not in fact this great unwashed mass of undecideds out there, who we valiantly try to convince. Maybe they are in fact decided, but affiliated to different parties on different issues, and they prioritise things differently at different times, resulting in changes over votes.

What if all our rhetoric and lobbying and campaigning really only results in a reshuffle of priorities, rather than changing minds and hearts?