Opinion Polls Show Confusing Picture
Two opinion polls released by ONE News and TV3 tonight give a rather confused picture of the public’s political preferences.
The ONE news Colmar Brunton poll has National gaining 4 points, taking them to 54-percent, while Labour remain stable on 35-percent. In the small party stakes, support for the Greens halves to 3.7-percent, with the Maori Party, NZ First and Act sitting on 3.2-percent, 1.5-percent, and 1.1-percent respectively.
In the preferred Prime Minister stakes, both John Key and Helen Clark register a drop in their support, taking them to 35-percent and 29-percent respectively.
In contrast, the TV3 poll presents a completely different picture. In their poll, National drops 3 points, while Labour picks up 3 points, taking them to 48-percent and 38-percent respectively. This 10-point gap is significantly smaller than the 19-point deficit shown in the ONE News poll.
Of the smaller parties, the Greens drop slightly to 5.8-percent, and both NZ First and the Maori Party increase slightly to 3.4-percent and 2.9-percent respectively. ACT and United Future barely register.
In the preferred PM stakes, Clark regains the position as New Zealand’s preferred PM for the first time in a year, picking up 4 points to 32-percent, while Key drops a massive 6 points to 29-percent. However, the poll has more good news for Helen Clark, with 62-percent of those polled thinking she is performing better than she has in two years. Meanwhile, Key registers a drop in those who think he is performing well to 52-percent, and a 4 point increase in those who think he is performing poorly.
The polls certainly do send mixed messages about the public mood at the moment. Although, it would appear the ONE News poll is out of step with other recent polls which have shown a mood shift toward Labour. The ONE News poll also tends to over-represent National Party support, and the TV3 poll was the most reliable leading up to the 2005 general election.
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National’s Support Continues To Crumble
The latest Roy Morgan poll shows support for National continues to erode, in line with other recent polls. The poll, conducted between 24th March – 6th April, shows support for National dropped by 4-percent, to 47-percent. While National’s drop was quite large, the increase in support for Labour was relatively marginal at only 0.5-percent, to 34.5-percent.
The Greens picked up 2.5-percent in the latest poll, taking them to 9-percent. Of the other small parties, both NZ First and the Maori Party picked up 1-percent, taking them to 4-percent and 3-percent respectively. Act remained unchanged on 1.5-percent, while United Future and the Progressives barely registered, with only 0.5-percent support each.
The poll clearly indicates that National has failed to regain the momentum it lost during March after the numerous gaffs and cock-ups by John Key, and now that it has lost the political agenda altogether they will have to fight to win the public back. It is surprising that Labour didn’t pick up more than 0.5-percent, however the poll doesn’t take into account the FTA with China or the government’s veto of the sale of Auckland Airport to the Canadian Pension Plan. One expects that both of these issues have gone down well with the general public, and this will likely be seen in future polls.
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Labour Gaining Ground
The latest Herald-DigiPoll shows resurgence in support for Labour, at the expense of National. Support for National has dropped 4.6 points to 49.9-percent, while Labour has picked up 2.8 points to 39.3-percent. Of course most, if not all, of National’s drop in support can be attributed to John Key’s poor performance this month, and The Herald states March as being:
“…a month memorable for slip-ups and lackluster performances by leader John Key.”
On the other hand, Labour’s approach under the pragmatic leadership of Helen Clark has simply been to get on with governing, and the progressive release of policy seems to have paid off. As The Herald says, March has involved:
“…carefully designed publicity hits for the Government, including a snap move to try to keep strategic assets such as Auckland Airport in New Zealand control.”
Certainly, Helen Clark has always maintained that the gap between Labour and National will close once either party begins releasing policy, and one expects that gap to continue closing over the next few months.
In the preferred PM stakes things are much tighter, with Key on 45.9-percent and Clark on 45.6-percent. It is quite interesting that, while National seem to have a clear edge over Labour at the moment, the public aren’t at all sure about the leadership of John Key. I suspect this is what is going to hurt National come the election.
In the minor parties, The Greens dropped half a point to 3.9-percent; NZ First is down 1 point to 1.1-percent; The Maori Party picks up 2.2 points, taking them to 3.7-percent; Act gains 0.7 points to 1.1-percent; and United Future doesn’t register.
Labour will certainly take some solace from this latest poll, and will give them momentum to keep the heat on Key, and force him to have more months like March.
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National Pays For Key’s Blunders
The latest TVNZ/Colamr Brunton poll has National taking somewhat of a hit following the rather bad fortnight the party has had. National is down 3 points to 50-percent, while Labour is up one to 35-percent. Both the Greens and NZ First have also picked up a point, taking them to 7 and 2.5-percent each. The Maori Party is sitting on a reasonable 2.5-percent, with all other parties failing to register over 1-percent. The latest poll follows the recent Roy Morgan poll, which also showed growing support for Labour.
In the past fortnight John Key has demonstrated that, without close management, he is a liability for National. This has certainly been picked up in the polls. Helen Clark and Labour now need to keep the pressure on Key to force more of these errors, and to show the public what the real John Key is actually like.
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