A new poll has Labour well short of being able to form a government and confirms the news Chris Hipkins didn’t need, that National is in arm’s reach of 40 percent
Comment: In the latest 1News-Verian poll Labour is 10 seats short of forming a government and headed in the wrong direction.
Both Labour and the Greens are down in Wednesday night’s poll – though Labour only dropped one point to 28 percent, the Greens lost two to settle on 10 percent.
Team them up with Te Pāti Māori’s three percent and that only gets the centre-left bloc 51 seats.
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National and Act won’t be popping the champagne given they only sneak across the line with 62 seats between them.
Though National can at least be pleased to be up two points to 39 percent, Act is still suffering from that run of candidate disappearances in recent weeks, dropping three points in the poll to 10 percent.
That’s equal pegging with the Greens.
Adding to Act’s woes is New Zealand First back in the game. It's up one point to hit five percent – the threshold needed to return to Parliament.
The latest numbers come just 48 hours after the Newshub Reid Research poll that saw National crack 40 percent for the first time and Labour drop to a devastating low of 26.8 percent.
What the two polls together show is that National is out of the mid-thirties zone it has been stuck in and is either knocking on the door of 40 or walking through it.
The preferred prime minister polling is no relief for Chris Hipkins in Wednesday’s poll either with him sharing 23 percent with Christopher Luxon.
Winston Peters will be quietly amused his potential return to Parliament was deemed a comeback worthy of a breaking news announcement on 1News – something usually saved for natural disasters, unfolding police operations, or high-profile resignations.
He doesn’t believe in polls apparently, and he wouldn’t want to with a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percent.
On the latest numbers he’d get seven MPs back in Parliament but wouldn’t be needed in a National-Act government.
Hipkins has already accepted there’s a mood for change but insists the campaign has only just started.
He’s not wrong about the first but is starting to stretch the truth on the second.
What Hipkins is hoping is that a large chunk of voters hasn’t cottoned on to the fact there’s an election next month and don’t yet know what Labour is offering.
The problem with that is if they’re unhappy with the status quo and want change, then whatever Labour is offering is redundant.
The race isn’t over and Hipkins has everything to play for but if the opening of the pre-election fiscals on Tuesday told voters anything, it’s that big promises aren’t affordable.
That means Labour must run on its record to date and can’t expect to win the electorate over with sweeteners.
It also puts pressure on National to explain how it will pay for its offerings.
Luxon has promised to tell voters in a couple of weeks what is in and what is out in its fiscal plan, after he’s had time to digest the Crown accounts.
Once National’s done that, it’s down to voters to decide who they think will do a better job of delivering the most with very little, and whether a change of government is the answer.
