Voters are losing faith in the Coalition Government and increasingly open to giving Chris Hipkins another shot as Prime Minister, recent polls show.
A Taxpayers’ Union–Curia poll taken last week showed the National-Act-NZ First coalition continuing to lose support, leaving the left and right blocs literally tied in Interest.co.nz’s polling average.
The Coalition’s 11.2-point lead from the October 2023 election has been completely lost. National and its partners sit at 47.1% support, behind Labour and its allies at 47.7%—though the gap is still too small to measure accurately.
A simple 120-seat distribution based on these numbers would lead to a hung Parliament, with each bloc holding 60 seats. However, any final seat allocation would depend on a more complex algorithm and electorate results.
Polls have shown declining support for the Government since the election, with little sign of a honeymoon period. But voter dissatisfaction gained momentum late last year, coinciding with a sharp GDP downturn as the Reserve Bank’s monetary tightening took full effect.
The shrinking economy, rising unemployment, and an underwhelming reduction in mortgage rates may help to explain why the New Zealand public is losing faith in the Coalition.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has fallen marginally behind Chris Hipkins in the Taxpayers’ Union–Curia preferred PM rankings. Luxon dropped 0.4 points to 20.3%, while Hipkins jumped 3.1 points to 20.7%. Interest.co.nz does not have an average for this metric.
The poor numbers might explain an uptick in rumours and speculation over the weekend that Luxon could be pushed out of the top job before the next election, or even the end of the year.
Duncan Garner, a once well-informed political reporter, wrote in Listener Magazine that discussions about replacing Luxon were already taking place, though the article was highly speculative and lacked concrete evidence.
These rumours often surface when poll numbers are low and shouldn’t be taken too seriously. However, those who dismissed speculation about Jacinda Ardern’s 2023 resignation were ultimately proven wrong.
New Labour
While much can be said about what Luxon has done wrong, it’s also worth considering what Hipkins has gotten right. His centrist, low-profile strategy appears to be paying dividends.
When Hipkins took over from Ardern, he moved away from some of Labour’s more leftist positions and has promised “not to bark at every passing car” in opposition. He has also correctly acknowledged that the electorate rejected Labour’s 2023 platform and seems to be gradually developing a new set of more moderate policies.
Last week, he unveiled a minor portfolio reshuffle to better emphasize economic issues and declared a Labour government would focus on three priorities: jobs, health, and housing. This was announced in a speech to the Auckland Business Chamber, not a union or social group.
Hipkins also promised to keep any Coalition policies and programs that were delivering positive results for the country.
“I am not going to stand here and ask you to give your support to the Labour Party just so we can put everything back in place, and start the merry-go-round again,” he said.
“Just because the current government started something we aren’t just going to stop it because it was their idea not ours. If it’s working, we will keep moving forward. No more throwing the baby out with the bathwater just to make a political point”.
Lean in
But some of Labour’s popularity may come from avoiding the tough decisions of governing. The party has committed to balanced budgets, but it hasn’t explained how it will achieve them, and the required tax hikes or spending cuts are unlikely to be popular.
It will also have to grapple with coalition partners who have turned further left and taken more radical policy positions that may scare off moderate voters.
Te Pāti Māori has become a protest party with questionable ethics and no viable ministerial candidates. While the Greens still have potential ministers, they may be reluctant to serve in a more capitalist, conservative-leaning Labour Cabinet.
Oddly, New Zealand First could be a future coalition partner for a moderate left. Despite his longevity, Winston Peters won’t be around forever, and his deputy, Shane Jones, is a former Labour MP.
If Peters were to step down, there’s even a slim chance former Napier MP Stuart Nash could take over. A longtime figure on Labour’s right, Nash recently wrote a column urging his former colleagues to reconsider their opposition to NZ First.
16 Comments
I do not think Luxon is a bad leader, I feel more that he has only bad policy to hand.
His ideology cannot tax more to fill the private credit gap from the Ponzi...
And the growth summit will produce results only slowly, though I support it.
Many private players have cashed in their Ponzi profits and want to play a different game
called lifestyle.
If to think of the caption photo as the proverbial front row then certainly the props are doing their job for they are as colourful as the hooker is colourless. National inherited a nation in financial plight and with still quite some way on. There are indications, for instance the uplift in primary production optimism, that the economy is improving but that simply gets obscured by clouds if the most important messenger cannot deliver the message. Mr Luxon though would be unwise to try and alter his image and he needs to remain his natural self. There is at least fifteen months to go before anything gets into serious electioneering. He is not gifted at charisma in the public sense. Some might remember an ill fated attempt of that sort by the usually intelligent Geoffrey Palmer, in blowing his trumpet around the beehive.
Its not just Luxy, Willis does not inspire either.
The economy is NOT 'improving'.
Consumption may be rising, but that isn't the real economy.
If Labour want to get in to power then perhaps they need to position themselves to potentially being willing to consider parties to the right as either coalition partners or at least 'allies' in relation to financial supply, if that is what is required to avoid what the electorate considers to be extremist policies.
My own judgment is that NZ will not vote for a 'leftwing government' comprising Labour +Greens +Te Pati Maori. And in the heat of an election, voters will turn away from the prospect of such a coalition. So Labour needs to create options.
KeithW
It's not a matter of 'getting into power. Keith.
It's a matter of being able to identify and address the human predicament.
None of them are within a bull's roar of that.
Yip I would have considered myself a centre left voter up to the last election. But after witnessing the behaviour of some of the left coalition of recent years I don’t think I can bring myself to vote for them again unless they rapidly bring themselves back towards the centre and away from the extremes of the left. Marama Davidson screaming ‘cis white men are the problem’ at a protest made me realise I could never support such a coalition of views like hers if she (and other similar party members) were to have any sway whatsoever within a political coalition (imagine if somebody on the political right (such as David Seymour) were to go to a protest and repeatedly proclaim that ‘coloured lesbian women are the problem’ - the outrage that would require an immediate resignation …but it is ok if you attack in the opposite and claim straight white men are all bad as a blanket statement). I emailed these views to James Shaw (told him he had lost a cis white male voter) and unless the party changed away from these radical views they’d lost my support permanently. He not much later announced his departure from the party.
"Luxon dropped 0.4 points to 20.3%, while Hipkins jumped 3.1 points to 20.7%."
"National and its partners sit at 47.1% support, behind Labour and its allies at 47.7%—though the gap is still too small to measure accurately."
Poll margin of error +/-3.1%
just note the opposition parties have gained about 11 points since the election, well beyond the margin of error
Any poll at this stage of proceedings is of course an hypothetical comparison come prediction of the outcome of an election some 20 months distant. There is much water yet to come to the bridge. But to be fair, hypothetically speaking, one might then wonder just how the alternative coalition , that is Labour, Greens & TPM, would be faring today, in the polls. That of course would need to take into consideration the state of collapse and disarray Labour presented at the election, and the subsequent series of personnel implosions in the Greens and the straight out ructions and discord in which TPM have excelled. Just a question but quite honestly in my opinion, given the acknowledged parlous state of NZ’s finances, the nation would now be on the brink of ruin with the most dysfunctional government it has ever witnessed.
I acknowledge that the trend is your friend. I have been posting the link to the monthly Roy Morgan poll on interest since the election, no matter what the result.
To be honest I was surprised how much faith people had at the last election in the promises the National party were making - I guess people were just desperate for a change after the covid years. I think a few of us on here said at the time that the last election might have been a good one to lose given the economic situation a new government were going to be held responsible for trying to remedy - some form of recession/economic hardship appeared baked in leading up to the election so no matter who won and what new policies they were going to introduce, they were probably going to end up looking bad just as National appear to be right now.
This is true but they didn't need to make the situation even worse, which is what they appear to be hell bent on doing for ideological reasons. Centre-right used to be pragmatism (with a status-quo bent) over ideology, that approach has gone AWOL with the coalition.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think a left-wing coalition would be any better than what the current lot are doing (at the last election I felt neither left nor right represented my political position). Vote left you get nut jobs saying cos white men are the problem, vote right and you get tax cuts for property investors in an already dysfunctional housing market.
Either way it was going to be bad.
(and yes I already know you have a strong left leaning political bias - for what reason I am unsure - do you work in Wellington/government agency or other reason? It’s your right to have this position so I’m not judging you for it but I always find it intriguing to understand why people think one side of the spectrum is always superior to the other when both seem to be riddled with problems - I’ve voted across the spectrum over the years but as I say above - last election I thought it was going to be bad if either main party got elected )
our next election is likely 18 months away (give or take)....given the current global instability this means nothing.
“Just because the current government started something we aren’t just going to stop it because it was their idea not ours. If it’s working, we will keep moving forward. No more throwing the baby out with the bathwater just to make a political point”.
Holy smokes, that would be excellent if both parties were grown up enough to adopt this!
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