Support for Labour has overtaken that for National, against the backdrop of the Jami-Lee Ross saga.
Support for Labour is up 3% to 45%, while it’s down 2% to 43% for National, according to the latest One News/Colmar Brunton poll, conducted between Monday and Friday last week.
Their previous poll was done three months ago.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has received her highest score in the preferred prime minister ranks of 42% (+2%), while National Leader Simon Bridges has received his lowest as Leader of 7% (-3%).
Climbing 3% to 5%, National MP Judith Collins is now only just behind Bridges.
Meanwhile support for NZ First Leader Winston Peters is down 1% to 4%.
Coming back to the political parties, support for the Green Party is up 1% to 7%. New Zealand First is steady at 5% and the Maori Party 1%. Act hasn’t received enough support to feature in the poll at all.
However, the Coalition Government is by no means at a comfortable position, with only 22% of survey respondents being optimistic about the economy (-6%) and 41% pessimistic (+6%).
The poll saw 1006 eligible voters contacted either by landline or mobile phone. The margin of error is 3.1%.
98 Comments
National have a strong base. A 2% decline is nothing and probably less than the poll's margin-of-error. Saying that, by the time 2020 comes around many more young people will be of voting age and some National voters would have died off.
As for immigrant electors .. the party willing to tackle New Zealand's growing slave labor issues will surely pick up some votes.
This rationale has been trotted out each election. I voted National at my first election and have never changed tribal affiliation in the last 39 years. There will be a counterpart e.g. Rick who has done the opposite ;) It's true people become more conservative as they age, probably due to experience, but the die hard lefties don't switch affiliations. I've been waiting for NZF voters to die off, but I've been disappointed to date. Don't bank on demographics to deliver your utopia.
I already have my personal utopia. I'm married to a woman I love and respect, who gave me wonderful children and I in return provided my family with financial independence and a home where they are happy and healthy. The unfortunate truth is that I have to be constantly vigilant that the lefties don't take it away with their politics of envy. Paradoxically, it's Winstone forming the first line of defence.
Ex-Expat,
There are many like you,but I have never-and I am now 73-been able to accept that any party has all the best ideas. I have changed my vote a number of times and will no doubt do so again.
I belong to a share buying group and I am pretty sure that apart one ex NZF MP,I am the only non National party supporter. They are nice people,but incredibly blinkered.Die hard Righties don't switch either and both are guilty of dogmatism-of course,that's much easier than actually thinking.
the only problem national face is no mates, it is near on impossible to win the election under MMP as a single party.
so unless they can conjure up another party of 5% they are toast next election, so is the WP party if he retires, we could be down to three parties.
they need to spend the next two years making friends instead of dirty politics, maybe if they hadn't tried that before the last election they would be in power now
Sharetrader. Not convinced it is impossible. Given it is the impressionable reality TV show fan, swing voter segment of the population, that decides which government we get (plus the terminally confused in the case of NZF), double digit % swings are entirely possible off the back of any poorly handled dramas in the coalition that are also, you know, ‘real life’ just like the Jamie Lee Ross saga.
No it is not impossible and at the moment the disarray National have self harmed themselves with, would make anybody look good. Governments can do likewise given time, at any time too. Think Bolger’s cobbled together ramshackle government. Two years from now who can tell what circumstances our small nation might find itself in, given the turmoil brewing amongst the great powers. If it a bad situation for NZ the government will get the blame just as Kirk’s government got the blame for an international oil crisis. But it is true National needs a credible coalition prospect and at the present state of affairs, who would want to be in the same boat.
Good observations.
A lot of shit has been thrown but little has stuck - so far, and its looking increasingly less likely. I suspect it will rapidly die down unless Ross actually can produce the inside oil. The silence from the coalition on donations is noticeable. They don’t want that boat rocked and will likely continue to watch from the sidelines. And trading of political influence for support of the party comes in various forms, not just monetary donations. The heavy sway held by the trade union over Labour party policy for example. And winstons fishing quota buddies are probably also keen for him to keep his head down.
Good point - why the silence? I reckon if all donations were from citizens then national would collect by far the most probably followed a long way behind by the Greens. Very suspiciously quiet about donations by Labour (ask Raymond Huo and Phil Goff) and NZF and the Greens. Surely this is one acceptable time for virtue signalling.
Yes MM it is crystal ball at the moment but one thing is for sure a Labour led government from 2020 has the application, will and ability to tax NZ to a standstill. Clark & Cullen were thwarted in 2009 but all that was shelved then is now dusted off and ready to go. God defend New Zealand.
Anti-tax dogma to me seems so simple minded to me "If only we didn't get taxed so much, all would be better".
I would have thought that if Clarke was going to "tax NZ to a standstill", if that is actually possible, then they would have done so within the decade that they were in power?
Is it then forgotten that having been part of a government that introduced & increased GST in their previous term, with of course fair & proper compensatory reduction in income tax, the latter was then blatantly shoved right back up in their next time in office. But then again of course Jim Anderton did the fronting on that for them didn’t he so guess it doesn’t count. One thing I admire Peter Dunne about is that he had the strength of mind to exit Labour over the hypocrisy of their then leaders on this issue.
we have twenty years of history to go back on and it has not happened yet, the closest we came to a single party was JK being 2 seats short, MMP is designed by nature to never allow one party to hold power, hence why it was designed and introduced into germany after WW2.
those that hold out hope of a single party winning enough of the vote to govern on its own are hanging out for FPP, we are long past that.
hence my statement national need a natural 5% partner and have had two chances to nuture one in the last two elections but chose both times to set about destroying them
if they were smart they would nuture one now (gift them the ACT seat)
same as how to many greens and labour are tied together, if you vote for one you are also voting for its partner after all they were born out of the alliance a bunch of parties spun off from labour in the early years of MMP.
A history of New Zealand's MMP governments
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11933570
I'd say it easier to have no mates. Most people are going to vote either left or right. There are some voters in the middle that could go either way, but they are normally going to swing towards a major party, not to the extremes.
Having too many parties on your wing can dilute the votes. For example, 2% voted for TOP last election - if they had not existed, the majority of those probably would have voted labour.
National's main problem is that they are losing the swing voters to Labour - due to their own cock ups and also the left are doing a good job of changing the narrative from 'bludgers' to 'unfortunates'.
Was that 2% loss in the polls for National part of the 3% reduction in foreign buyers they were talking about previously? Are the statistics accurate or have labour understated them and the loss of support for National is actually greater than these figures suggest?
A few things we should note:
1. There's only the one party on the centre-right (nominally). Hence, dyed in the wool voters have nowhere they'll go.
2. The timing of the poll may not have allowed most of the poop-flinging to have an effect.
3. Simon is down another 3%, while Dirty Judy is up 3%. Sort of defeats the purpose, if National were to be rid of Simon for ethical reasons only to install Judith as leader.
4. I'd doubt the poop-flinging is over by any stretch. Recent days have seen Cam Slater claiming to have a text message from the same female MP complaining of Simon Bridges being handsey with her, and now there's a further message coming out (from one of the female MPs) in the news this morning.
All that poop-flinging aside, one would hope it does not overshadow the much more serious discussion that needs to be had around foreign influence, pay-to-play politics and the possible selling of list places, and the need for more transparency around donations to all parties.
the national MP that sent him the text sounds a nasty piece of work, i find it interesting her website has not been updated since end of 2016. it looks like a culture inside national that needs cleaning up, some of them are starting to make crusher colins look like nice,
as an aside his poll has CC taking over and i reckon that is a good bet, must just waiting for the right time to pounce
Rick our "democracy" is a fake one. It has all the weaknesses of a democracy with politicians focusing on the short term election cycle and easily subverted by foreign money yet none of the choice. Any party willing to challenge the status quo is met with the 5% threshold and wasted vote unless they hold a racial seat, coat tailing deal or Gerry-Mandered electorate.
In the last few elections we've seen multi-seat small parties miss out (TOP, Internet, Conservatives) while tiny parties on half a seat like Act or Peter Dunne get in. MMP is a joke. There are more types of Potato at my local duopoly supermarket than there are viable parties to vote for.
The general belief around the world is that Asian expat communities are politically and economically conservative and tend to vote centre-right. I doubt they will change their political allegiance because of some comments from what seems to be a party leader soon to be challenged and ousted due to record low approval ratings.
I hope this gives rise to a bunch of real centre-right candidates instead of the crony capitalistic sellouts currently running the Nat party. I hope they can build a party that supports innovation over unbridled migration as driver of economic growth, real wage inflation over asset inflation.
Well Rick the United Party was more or less that. ie before the wonky future christian thingy got involved. You will recall Dunne even showed how appealing that position was by riding the worm, much at Bolger’s expense. There were some reasonably sound MP’s from both parties involved in the inception. It didn’t last. Probably would have been good if it had.
Labour have been very quiet on donations so the asians buying them up as well no doubt. We are being colonised by Chinese (go to north shore of Auckland. Chinese dominat and whole areas of town dont even speak English and even shop signs all in chinese) and all NZ sheep care about is the school yard antics of National. Bearly any talk of this Asian bribing mayors and party leaders to push communist agendas. Wake up you muppets before its too late.
See what you mean , they really buried it .
http://www.colmarbrunton.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Prelim_28-Jul…
Yes, I did find that, I noticed that in a May poll the don't knows where 13% and the one you linked to 16%, I wonder how long it will be until there is a PDF with the latest results. The numbers are there, as you say, but not until a bit later than the other poll results. That will be interesting.
I notice if they got a don't know from the what party would you vote for, they then ask who people think they would vote for, I think I would prefer to know the % of don't knows, rather than the maybe I mights. I think the don't know response could be very telling at a time like this.
Not 100% sure what those don't know % results actually refer to though, seeing as they get some sort of answer from the what party question. Is it preferred PM, what else is left?
This wasn't JLR's conscience getting the better of him and him wanting to come clean in an unprompted selfless disclosure.
This was payback for him being caught with his hand in the cookie jar (and by cookie jar you all now what I mean;) the ramifications of which were his likely departure from the party at the next election. His career was done and this is merely an attempt by him to inflict damage to the National Party with a kamikaze strike as he goes down.
I meant his affairs and apparent bullying of women. Cookie jar was a bad analogy, maybe fishing off the company pier?:
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/368904/four-women-accuse-jami-…
Ok. Another issue. One that can be dealt with as part of business.
THE issue is the fraud against democracy..or allegation of it. Foreign interference as has been insinuated/inferred ...by others and not just the saga now exposed.
And msm out letting us down by chasing the click bait..and anti lab bias.
msm anti-lab bias... really???
none so blind as those who do not wish to see.
I'd strongly prefer more objective media myself. This is getting harder and harder to find, although my personal biases may be somewhat interfering with my assessments here. At least I attempt to read sources across the spectrum and try and find what has factual data behind, instead of supposition and rumor mongering. I so miss old-school long-form journalism, but understand the financial benefit (lower cost and increased advertisement outcome) of sound-bite journalism.
Agreed, but he did not disclose this info as part of some civic duty to the truth. He was happy to keep the dirty little secret until National leadership started to sanction him for his affairs and bullying. My point is his motivation was revenge and the infliction of damage to Bridges and National. Hardly a selfless act.
Also interesting in that scenario is National's attacking of Labour for a supposed cover up of harassment at their youth camp. Now it appears National has covered up harassment (incl a confidentiality agreement) in order to protect power, then rocked it out when needed. And JLR claims to have a record of them threatening him with it.
Spin it strong Mr Street. An agreement between two adults to treat an incident is very different to the alleged situation at the Youth Camp. If my child had been plied with alcohol and had someone else’s hand down their pants then there was a pattern of coverup with cosy deals for party heads aka the Air NZ (corrupt?) employment, I’d want justice. Fat chance with this lot. Then there are questions as to whether a Labour MP is being protected. It stinks to high heaven. No surprises that you aren’t calling it.
Privacy laws in the country, rightly or wrongly, make it possible for underage kids to be dished out contraceptives in school without parents' knowledge, and those same laws applied there. You can bitch and moan all you like about the current govt, but that is how it is. If you want different results then campaign against that, not just use it as an excuse to paint lipstick on the pig that is the present National party.
The victory is for the Asians. There's 500,000 Chinese now calling NZ Inc home. There's over 160 Indians living here as well.These are astonishing numbers. I don't recall ever being asked whether we wanted this situation or not. I must have been away that day. These are fundamentally changing our culture and I'm not sure they're for the better. The upside is that they're workers. Whether studying or grafting they work their little socks off. And this is why it happened. Because our birth rates are so abysmal (apart from the bottom feeders) and the fact that we've become lazy (as all wealthy cultures do) we don't have enough tax-payers to pay the exorbitant amounts of tax to prop up the breeding-classes. We are all to blame in some small way and to get out of it is now impossible. What we have to do is to merge the talents of those already here into something internationally dynamic, which I believe means adding more value to our core products & services so we can aim at the top 10% of the global population in everything we do.
Exactly right HeavyG
My Chinese neighbour would rather lease several expensive Euro vehicles to offset tax than pay taxes
In Vancouver the ones who came in under business investment program which was discontinued in 2010 in Canada ( but still runs through Quebec today by default Just lend Quebec $1.2Mill for 5 years & you are in Canada ! ) were found to be paying less income tax than refugees !
One mother & son bought a $7Million home while daddy stayed home at his law practice in China and sent them money.She paid under $70 in income tax to Canada for the year and her house went up in value to $7.7Milliom that year
Auckland has just become little Shanghai too
NZ like Australia & Canada have been incorporated into the China Borg
Resistance is futile
NZ like Australia & Canada have been incorporated into the China Borg
You aren't wrong, was in the Sydney CBD a few weeks back on a weekend and went for a wander to grab a drink, the cbd has gone so multi-cultural its mono-cultural again. Thought I'd found some white Australains at one stage.. nope, german tourists!
Absolutely LongJohnMartin correct
Western birth rates down since the 1970s but China also has an aging population resulting from their ill conceived one child policy since reversed
Why NZ couldn’t have encouraged breeding ? Wait a minute we did encourage breeding but ended up with the lazy breeding and the workers supported their lifestyle
This is the outcome of misguided social welfare:
Ksake, you take that stuff seriously?? What are you suggesting, because not everyone is an Einstein, you know, maybe rag picking down at the local dump??
Now read this next bit carefully, when women are educated, in control of their lives and fertility, they have fewer children and delay the age at which they start to reproduce, many choose not to breed at all. If you want to keep the birth rate up then women are going to have to be subjugated again, I truly hope you are not suggesting this is a path to follow.
The future world will thank these women for the effort they make to reduce the world's population in order that generations that follow them have a chance.
Technology, done right, can get us through the obvious problem of an aging population.
We probably will end up going down that track, we can't help ourselves, however, the technology I was referring to was such that could be of use in elder care and worker shortage situations, it will, of course, require something like a UBI, the means for which will come from either taxation or different ownership of such technology.
Kiwi so dumb lah. Did you know only 2% of kiwis can tell the difference between a wasp and a bee?
It's true because our beehive is filling up with wasps and they don't even notice. One of them is Jiang Yang a trained spy but he's painted himself in blue stripes and denies he is a spy. Case closed!
Another is Raymond Huo who is involved with various pro-Chinese lobby organisations. Then we have our dual-citizen dual-loyalty MPs like Golriz who get a seat despite having one foot in another country.
Freedom is slavery, war is peace, and... diversity is a strength!
Im a bit surprised the whole episode hasn't done more damage. Perhaps the public are simply taking it as Jami-Lee Ross has simply walked off the reservation. A drowning man clutching at straws.
The question for National is how do they handle JLR if he does return to parliament as an independent (I say 'if' because I am not convinced its the right thing for him to do). I'd suggest they simply ignore him....perhaps show some concern... but no need to return fire in muck-raking.
In terms of National in 2020, they do need to start thinking strategically about how they will be able to form a government. In the absence of a credible conservative party or united future popping up they will be forced to go alone (with David Seymour). Personally, I'd suggest over the next 12-18 months National focus on building credible environmental and immigration policies. It'll chip away and the hard core green voters who must feel a little disheartened by the socialist leaning to that party. It could also creates areas of agreement for the Greens and National... perhaps not in a coalition... but a supply and confidence agreement could work. On immigration, I think there is scope to lure back some NZ First voters, particularly those who cannot stand Shane Jones who must be the leading contender to take over that party when Winnie eventually retires.
There is no doubt National have the wood on Labour in terms of economic credibility..... and the list of broken promises are numerous but by producing policies on environment and immigration its a chance for Bridges' National to distance himself from Key's National.
One thing is for sure, National have gone out of their way to protect a predatory Ross for at least two years, best they don't get on their moral high horse. So now we know that, it is not a quantum leap to believing they haven't been up to much good in other aspects.
As to your last paragraph - pfft, seeing as you even seem to think they need to pinch Green and Labour policies to achieve credibility. I'd rather cut to the chase and stick with the real thing.
On the Greens and the Nats working together, what would win out in a economy v environment battle, if it's the former, forget the Greens going with the Nats.
I think National did have MP’s at one stage that might have bridged (didn’t really want to use that word) the gap with the Greens. eg Simon Power, Katherine Rich perhaps? Trouble is Key took the existing lot into his world where the corporate rules the waves, walked out and left them floundering and thrashing around wondering what to do next.
Well I think your chances of getting to anything like you imagine among conservative politics lies somewhere between nil and zip. At the moment the world is descending into a collective madness of toxic conservatism, and the latest of them is this Jair Bolsonaro who will likely just pour accelerant onto the Amazon and chuck a lit match in. We are going to have to get past the Trumps, the Putins, the Xis, the total mess that is British and Australian politics, the completely amoral Saudis and of Bolsonaro, Duterte, how long is this list, before we can even think about right wing and green collaborating. I can't see us getting to the other side of this without violence, both to the planet and to ourselves.
Not suggesting pinching anything from Labour... they have made it clear they have nothing to offer. I was merely listing the two areas I think National are weak on. If I were to do that for Labour and or Greens I fear I would wear out my keyboard and develop carpal tunnel syndrome.
I can see greens polling worse and worse throughout this term and come Election 2020 could disappear completely... and in doing so the 3-4% of the vote they got would be wasted... handing National the victory.
The real thing indeed.
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