Jacinda Ardern’s Labour party is continuing to slump in popularity, as New Zealand reckons with a worsening cost of living crisis.
New polling found the centre-right National party leads Labour although a Labour-led coalition would still have a strong chance at government. The Newshub-Reid research poll put Labour down 6.1 points to 38.2% since its last poll in February, and National up 9.2 points to 40.5%.
Ardern’s personal popularity had also dropped 7%, to 36.3%. While still behind Ardern, National leader Christopher Luxon had risen in the preferred prime minister stakes at 23.9%, an increase of 6.1%. It marks Ardern’s lowest result in the Reid poll since she became prime minister in 2017, and the best result for a National leader since before that election. The latest poll is in line with other results earlier in the year. In March, a TVNZ/Kantor poll found National had overtaken Labour – albeit by a smaller margin – for the first time since the pandemic began.
Those results mark a return to business-as-usual for New Zealand, which has typically relied on the development of multiparty coalition governments rather than single-party rule. The last election, in which Labour won a large enough chunk of the vote to govern alone, was a departure from the norm – driven by Ardern’s personal popularity, and huge support for the government’s Covid-19 response.
Now, New Zealand’s attention has turned from the Covid response to the growing challenges of inflation and the cost of living. In April, annual inflation reached a 30-year high of 6.9%, and in March, food prices were 7.6% higher compared with a year prior. Despite government tax relief on petrol, prices at the pump have been driven up by the flow-on effects of the war in Ukraine. The cost of housing and renting remains a concern, with median rents up 7% year on year, while high prices continuing to lock many first-time buyers out of the housing market.
Ardern told Newshub that the results reflected a difficult time for the country. “It has been a really difficult period for New Zealand and then of course, by default, that makes it a difficult period to govern through,” she said. “There will be from time to time tough decisions that need to be made and if that means that we take a bit of a hit in the numbers, so long as we stand by all of the decisions we’ve made - and we do - then that’s a price we’re willing to pay.”
National party leader Christopher Luxon, who took the party’s helm this year, told the New Zealand Herald the results were a result of broad dissatisfaction from New Zealanders. “Why it’s happening is the public is just feeling that it’s a government that’s all spin and no delivery and it doesn’t get things done,” he said.
Under the current numbers, both major parties would be courting coalition options beyond their traditional partners. On the right, the libertarian Act party is sitting at 6.4%, and on the left, the Greens at 8.4%. If the election were to take place tomorrow, that would place the left and right blocks neck and neck, with neither able to form a government with just one coalition partner. Both would be looking to Te Pati Māori – the Māori party – to get them over the edge, with its 2.5%.
The next election must be held before January 2024.
