After months in a slow motion slide down the polls, the Coalition Government appears to have found some solid ground and won back some lost votes.
Three polls taken in late March show the Coalition back in position to form a government after briefly falling behind the left-leaning parties earlier in the month.
A quarterly RNZ–Reid Research poll last week showed the National Party on 32.9% and the Labour Party on 32.3%. On Friday the Taxpayers’ Union–Curia poll put the two parties at 33.5% and 29.8%, respectively.
The minor parties have held pretty steady since the election, despite a few outlier polls. The Greens generally poll about 11%, the Act Party at 9%, NZ First at roughly 6%, and Te Pāti Māori near 4.5%.
While the exact coalition mix moves around, these two most recent polls—plus the less reliable Roy Morgan—have shown the Government parties overtaking Labour’s allies.
Interest.co.nz’s DIY polling average shows the Coalition’s regaining a lead of 1.5 percentage points, an improvement on recent polls but still down from 11 points at the 2023 election.
It has always been assumed that National and its partners would benefit from falling interest rates and an improving economy in the second half of its term. While the economic recovery is still in its early stages, some indicators suggest the worst has passed.
Voters may have been spooked by the shock economic decline late last year, which corresponded with the maximum pressure of high interest rates and the winter electricity crisis. It looked to some that the Coalition had crashed the economy, rather than put it “back on track”.
However, the Reserve Bank’s interest rate cuts are beginning to take effect on the economy, which expanded in the final quarter of 2024. Unemployment has been creeping higher but is expected to peak at roughly its current levels.
RNZ–Reid Research data showed the percentage of voters who believed the country was headed in the wrong direction peaked toward the end of January and has since fallen ten percentage points.
A number of high profile issues have also dropped out of the headlines. An uneasy resolution has been reached on the Dunedin Hospital rebuild and progress made on buying new ferries.
The toxic Treaty Principles Bill has finished its select committee process and should be voted down at its second reading in the next couple of weeks. Inflation has also come under control and is steadily becoming less of a concern for voters.
Still, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s poor popularity ratings show little sign of recovering, perhaps due to his association with the even more unpopular Act Party leader David Seymour.
The Green Party co-leaders also received highly unfavorable ratings in the most recent TPU–Curia poll. Marama Davidson had a net-negative rating of more than 30% and Chlöe Swarbrick more than negative 20% — making them the most unpopular party leaders.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins was the only party leader with a positive net favourability rating at less than 5%. However, he trailed in the preferred Prime Minister poll at 18.9% to Luxon’s 21.9%.
13 Comments
Winnie is doing well at the moment bashing the greens.
Seymour often sounds like a winey hall monitor, but Winnie just smashes them.
In NZ, and hardly uniquely so, the negative views outweigh the positive. It is only halfway through the present term but the negatives that saw the sixth Labour government as the most heavily defeated in modern times have not been addressed. Indeed the prospects have worsened because while that was a standalone government in 2026 Labour will need to persuade the electorate that the Greens and TPM will be credible coalition partners. Frankly it is difficult, given the ructions and misbehaviour in both of those camps presently, to see that being little more than an impossible sell. The electorate will unfortunately once again need to decide on the least worst on offer.
I think our next government will be another outright majority - all the minors are a nightmare.
There was reason enough to get rid of FPP governments but MMP wasn’t and isn’t the best system. The electorate is too small and immature and persists in regarding though a FPP lens. Perhaps if the Royal Commission’s recommendation that there was no need to increase the number of MPs, had been followed the outcome might have been better in that the tighter field would improve the calibre on offer. The old days there were not short of fools and horses either but at least an electorate could boot them out.
The Royal Commission also recommended the abolition of the Maori seats, there being no justification to continuing race based preferences under MMP (in effect these were not justified since Maori men were enfranchised along with Europeans in universal male suffrage 1879 followed by women in 1893).
Imagine that.
Yes, no doubt that there is no longer any legislative or representative reason for those seats.
Point is, they are not entrenched. Only a simple majority needed by the government to get rid of them.
National can do that during this term - and maybe they will given ACT's Bill being turned down and NZ First's opposition to the seats (particularly given the Party movement is more radical than in the Tariana days).
It would also (my guess) ensure National's return to government next term.
Don’t know. It would seem the early parliamentarians put some sound reasoning into the Maori seats. The problem was that they simply got swallowed up as add on Labour seats, a given and badly taken for granted. Had that not been the case, would suggest that the seats resting independently in parliament, would have had both far better dignity and sway. By being automatically attached to Labour the Maori seats were destined to be far longer in opposition rather than having any say in government. That changed somewhat in Key’s National government and Dame Tariana Turia is on record that during that time, progress for Maori interests was made more significantly than ever before. Venture to suggest if that independence and application had existed long before, the Maori seats today would be a heck of a lot more productive and influential than the efforts of the present lot, being not far off rabble.
It would seem the early parliamentarians put some sound reasoning into the Maori seats.
Yes, but that reasoning no longer holds - all those matters have been remedied by other means;
https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/setting-maori-seats
No longer any valid reason(s) to keep them.
If the voters were told the truth by the media?
They might react differently.
Instead, we get self-reinforcing ignorance.
I think Christopher Luxon would do better if he stopped being scared and openly did some more things. On the other hand they are getting a lot done without too much hassle, like removing the special rights of Maori. But it's low key and voters are not seeing it, even though they would approve.
I hope to find out in the next month or two if actually anything is being done. My perception now is it's no key as opposed low key.
Given the current options it matters not.
MMP gives you a representation of those who choose to vote. Some think others are mad as do the others think they are mad.
Nothing new in history and sometimes I think it took a horrendous event as the 2 world wars to get everyone together for a bit and compromise as they had experienced the ultimate alternative (still not fair but a bit more peaceful) We are now around 2.5 generations removed and memories fade and forget.
Everyone seems to want to live how they perceive 300 million Americans do in luxury, wrong of course, and have unfettered access to goods and services, which they can’t, but still want it and blame the others for not allowing them to have it - Trump and Co plus political parties here in different ways.
I see no way of changing the human condition and the ride will continue. Those who are content with less will probably lead the most contented lives.
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