The AM Show sports reader Mark Richardson says centre-right voters aren't bad people, they just believe in different political ideals.
He made the comments after Jordan Williams of The New Zealand Taxpayers' Union, a largely centre-right group against taxation, appeared on the show.
Richardson, who openly sits centre-right on the political spectrum despite recently saying he might vote for Labour at the election, said leadership from the centre-left had made the other side of the spectrum look bad.
"There is a feeling now - because of the style of leadership we have seen out of the centre-left - if you sit centre-right on the political spectrum, you are a poor person," Richardson told viewers.
"More so than ever we're seeing that type of attitude.
"You're not [an enemy]. You just believe in a different political ideal - you're all in it to try and help others."
Richardson rejected that centre-right voters were selfish.
If Labour - a centre-left party - is re-elected, it will create a new top tax bracket of 39 percent for those earning over $180,000. On the contrary, the centre-right National Party is promising tax cuts.
"You just don't believe that state intervention is the best way of doing things," Richardson said. "You believe in more in the free market and good management will see more of that wealth spread down, as opposed to having to bring the top down to bring the bottom up."
The AM Show host Duncan Garner, formerly a political editor, suggested the divide between centre-left and centre-right wasn't that big.
"Parliamentarians from all parties still turn up to events together; they still play rugby in the Parliamentary team together, the netball team together - you'd be surprised at how many of them actually get on behind the scenes," he said. "Some of them become friends."
New Zealand has swung between centre-left and centre-right in the past decade. Helen Clark's Labour Government was succeeded by National, which was in power under John Key and Bill English until 2017 before Jacinda Ardern's Labour Coalition Government took power.
Recent polls suggest New Zealand will remain centre-left after the election. According to the latest Newshub-Reid Research Poll, Ardern's Labour holds the majority at 51 percent, with National trailing on 29.6 percent.
