A new political poll has put New Zealand’s centre-right opposition solidly ahead of the ruling Labour party in the lead up to October’s election, with the National and ACT parties recording the majority support needed to form a coalition government.
Labour languished on 29% of the vote in the Guardian Essential poll New Zealand, which polled more than 1,100 eligible voters, with National recording 34.5%. ACT received 11.6% of the vote. Respondents unsure about how they would vote – 6.1% of those surveyed – were included in the final result.
The poll tipped New Zealand First – a populist party which has held the balance of power after elections before – for a return to parliament on 5.3% of the vote. It would be an abrupt reversal of fortunes for a group ejected from power at the 2020 election after falling well short of the 5% electoral threshold needed to enter parliament.
Labour’s traditional support partners, the Green party and Te Pati Maori polled at 8.5% and 2.5% respectively.
Guardian
I looked into this crowd; they are very definitely a left-wing polling organisation, polling for all sorts of left-wing causes including pushing for ‘The Voice’ in Australia.
A left-wing polling company says that Labour is toast.
The poll is the first in what will be a monthly New Zealand survey by Essential, an Australian research firm whose political polls Guardian Australia has published since 2017. It will contain various topical questions, including some that have been discussed with the Guardian. The results of the online panel had a margin for error of 2.9% and was weighted to align with New Zealand’s population.
The result would give 46 seats in parliament to National – which currently only has 33 – and 15 to the libertarian party ACT, up from 10 now. Together, the two groups would hold 61 seats – a one-seat majority.
On the left, Labour (38 seats), the Greens (11) and Te Pati Maori (3) would hold a combined 52 places, well short of the 60 seats needed to form a government. Labour currently has 62 lawmakers in parliament after an almost unprecedented victory in 2020, at the height of former prime minister Jacinda Ardern’s popularity.
Guardian
This will put pressure on the mainstream media to lift their game on polling. Only the Guardian now polls monthly, from media outlets. All other monthly polling is done by private companies: Talbot Mills, Curia, and Roy Morgan. Stuff and the NZ Herald are looking decidedly average now, along with 1News and Newshub.
As a political tragic I welcome more polling.
There is more bad news for the Government, especially after announcing a big climate policy:
The poll’s respondents ranked reducing the cost of living as the issue of greatest importance to them from a list of options, ahead of primary healthcare and addressing the crime rate. The poll also recorded that 70% were “finding it a bit difficult” or “struggling” to afford food and groceries, versus 29% who said they could “comfortably” afford those items. In response to a question about financial circumstances, 58% of those surveyed said they were “struggling a bit” or “in serious difficulty” with paying their bills.
Guardian
What? No climate change as a key issue? But it gets even worse for them.
The poll saw 55% of respondents register that things in New Zealand were on the wrong track, against 31% who said the country was going in the right direction. The question is a standard one in political polls worldwide. As at the 2020 election, polling companies had recorded years of positive sentiment about New Zealand’s direction – making the country for a time an outlier among western liberal democracies.
Guardian
When a majority is saying we are on the wrong track, then the Government is rooted. When their top concerns are also the very things this Labour Government is tits at, then it is almost certain that the Government will change at the election.
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
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