Cam Slater: Latest Poll Shows Election Still a Close Run Thing

The latest Roy Morgan poll is out and it shows that the election is still a close-run thing. National, with everything that is happening in the economy, should be pulling ahead, but they aren’t; they are static.


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Today’s Roy Morgan New Zealand Poll for April 2023 shows the election is too close to call with a right-leaning potential National/ Act NZ coalition on 44.5%, down 0.5% points since March ahead of a left-leaning potential Labour/ Greens coalition on 42%, down 1.5% points.

For the potential right-leaning coalition support for National was unchanged at 32% while support for Act NZ was down 0.5% points to 12.5% – its lowest support so far this year.

In contrast, support for the governing Labour Party was down 3% points to 30% while support for their governing partners the Greens was up 1.5% points to 12% in April.

The results for April continue to show the New Zealand Election later in 2022 is on a knife-edge with the crossbench set to determine who will form New Zealand’s next Government.

Maori Party are still in the box seat to determine New Zealand’s next Government

The results for April suggest neither Labour/Greens nor National/Act NZ will have enough support to form a majority Government later this year and the party in the box seat to determine the next Government is the Maori Party on 4.5%, up 2.5% points on March.

Support for New Zealand First increased in April but is just short of the 5% threshold, up 1.5% points to 4.5% and not enough support to win seats in New Zealand’s next Parliament.

A further 4.5% of electors support other minor parties outside Parliament, down 2% points from a month ago, including 2% (down 1.5% points) who support The Opportunities Party, 1.5% points who support Democracy NZ and 0.5% (down 0.5% points) who support the New Conservative Party.

A potential 58 seats for a National/Act NZ coalition and 56 seats for a potential Labour/Greens coalition puts the Maori Party in the box seat to determine the next New Zealand Government

If these results were repeated at this year’s New Zealand Election the National/Act NZ coalition would score 58 seats, just ahead of the 56 seats for a potential Labour/Greens coalition – not enough for a majority of 61 seats for either side of politics.

The projected results show the Maori Party with 6 seats in New Zealand’s next Parliament would be in the box seat to determine who New Zealand’s Prime Minister after this year’s election would be – either Chris Hipkins (Labour) or Christopher Luxon (National).

Roy Morgan

The Maori Party are never going to deal with National. National should be worried. Sadly, I don’t think they feel the urgency they ought to be at this stage of the campaign. If National and Christopher Luxon can’t convince voters to back them despite the economic and societal storms we are experiencing then what will?

Meanwhile NZ First is getting very close to the 5% threshold. Given that Winston Peters has declared that he will not be doing any sort of deal with Labour, then National, and their blinkered supporters will have to, sooner or later, realise that they are going to have to deal with him. The alternative is to sit in opposition for another three years as the left smashes the country even harder than they have over the last six years.

This is why Don Brash is now calling for detente between the two parties:

My heart sank when I saw the results of the latest Roy Morgan poll yesterday: if those results were reflected in the election in October, New Zealand would be in for three years of a Labour/Greens/Maori Party coalition government, arguably a worse government than the three years of Labour that we have endured since 2020. […]

But there would appear to be a relatively simple solution. If NZ First were to win an electorate, its 4.5% share of the party vote would open the possibility of forming a centre-right coalition involving National, ACT and NZ First. To be clear, I have never voted for NZ First, and don’t plan to in the forthcoming election, but it is clear that enough people do intend to vote for NZ First that votes for that party could, if wasted, throw the election to a Labour/Greens/Maori Party coalition.

It seems to me that the solution would be for National not to contest the Northland electorate in the hope that the NZ First candidate would win it. And there would have to be at least a better than even chance that that would be the result: after all, Winston Peters himself won the seat in the 2015 by-election.

Having NZ First win that electorate would not, of course, directly result in any loss of National’s Parliamentary representation because that would be determined by National’s share of the party vote. For National, there would be two risks in not standing a candidate in Northland. First, some of the “soft-National vote” could drift to NZ First because it would be clear that a vote for NZ First would be unlikely to be wasted. And if NZ First then decided to throw in its lot with the Left, that would be a double blow to the centre-right’s chances of forming a government.

In my own judgement, it is extraordinarily unlikely that NZ First would form a government with three parties all of which are committed to giving superior constitutional rights to those with Maori ancestry. Winston Peters has, like the rest of us, changed his mind on several issues over time, but on the issue of equal citizenship for all New Zealanders he has been absolutely consistent throughout his very long political career.

From the National Party’s point of view, they have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Unless support for the National/ACT bloc picks up markedly, it seems very possible that the country is faced with the most left-wing government – and the most opposed to any concept of democracy – that we have ever seen in New Zealand. On the latest poll results, without NZ First winning an electorate, we would have a Labour/Greens/Maori Party Government with 62 seats in a 120 member Parliament. If NZ First were to win an electorate, there would at least be the possibility of a National/ACT/NZ First Government with 62 seats in a 121 member Parliament.

When the Tauranga by-election was called last year, I wrote a column suggesting that, if Winston Peters were to contest that by-election for NZ First – the seat that he held for 21 years from 1984 to 2005 – National Party supporters should vote for him, precisely to ensure that party votes for NZ First would be available in support of a centre-right coalition government after the election this year. Of course, Mr Peters chose not to contest the by-election. But the logic still stands: National should not stand a candidate in the Northland electorate this year.

Don Brash

National and their supporters have had more than 30 years of hating Winston Peters but the sad reality for them is that in order to govern they are going to have to swallow some dead rats with a healthy dollop of humble pie.

Otherwise, they are going to lose, and Christopher Luxon will go down in history as the man who never was.

Of course, there is also the unpalatable and metaphoric elephant sitting in the corner of the room: a grand coalition.

Cam Slater is a New Zealand-based blogger, best known for his role in Dirty Politics and publishing the Whale Oil Beef Hooked blog, which operated from 2005 until it closed in 2019. This article was first published HERE