The New Zealand First resurgence appears real – and National’s leader still won’t rule out working with them.

A new Curia poll for the Taxpayers’ Union has National out in front on 34.9%, up 1.6 points from last month. Combined with Act’s 13% and the right bloc would pick up a majority of the House: 61 seats.

Meanwhile, Labour has slumped by four points down to 27.1%, which would push it out of government. The Greens are up 3.1 points to 12% and would win 15 seats, but combined with Labour’s 34 and Te Pāti Māori’s three, this would only give the left bloc 52 seats.

Labour’s polling average has now dropped just below 30%.

The big mover in this latest poll is New Zealand First, up 2.5 points to 5.8% – a result that would push the party back into parliament with seven seats. This is the third poll in two weeks to show a return for the Winston Peters-led minor party.

National wouldn't need New Zealand First on these numbers as it could hold a majority with just Act. However, it's slim – just one seat above the required threshold. Despite this, Christopher Luxon still won't rule out working with Peters and New Zealand First. “[It's] way too premature to be talking about coalition agreements," he told reporters in Auckland this afternoon. “I’m focused on the National Party, our policies, our ideas…”

Asked whether he trusted Peters, Luxon said he had "good working relationships" with all political leaders, but refused to be drawn further.

Last week, National's deputy Nicola Willis told The Spinoff that polling wasn't showing New Zealand First back in parliament and it was therefore too soon to consider ruling them in or out (at the time, one poll already showed NZ First up above 5%).

Meanwhile, the new poll also shows that Chris Hipkins is no longer out in front in the preferred prime minister race. He's sitting on 25%, up two points, while Luxon has risen five points – to also be sitting on 25%.

Alex Casey writes:

Aesha Scott, the Tauranga-born star of international juggernaut franchise Below Deck, is being praised for her actions in the latest episode of Below Deck: Down Under. In the episode, which will air in New Zealand this month, Scott immediately reports the inappropriate behaviour of two of her fellow crew members to the captain after a booze-fuelled night out in Cairns.

As reported by E News, one incident involved bosun Luke Jones attempting to enter the bed of intoxicated crew member Margot Sissons while naked, and the other involves Laura Bileskalne making unwanted advances towards deck hand Adam Kodra. Scott woke up Captain Jason Chambers to inform him about the incidents, which saw both crew members lose their jobs.

“I wanted to take the opportunity to remind everyone of the main message that was shown on the episode, which is that women, and actually everyone, have the right to go out and have fun and feel safe,” Scott shared on social media following the response to the episode. “There’s no questions or ifs or buts, that is the end of it.” 

This is not the first time that Scott has spoken out about sexual violence on the show. In 2020 during Below Deck Mediterranean, she criticised her then-love interest Jack after he made a joke about rape, revealing that she had survived sexual assault. She told The Spinoff in 2022 that she still gets messages about that moment from women all over the world. 

“They say watching me saying that was the first time they’ve been able to tell their partner or their family about it,” she said. “I never knew that I would be able to have that much power to let other women not feel ashamed about it.”

Click here to read the full 2022 profile of Aesha Scott, and here for her recent My Life in TV interview

The prime minister has condemned a costly farewell party thrown by the Ministry for Pacific Peoples.

Reported yesterday, the $40,000 party was thrown for the ministry’s former chief executive Leauanae Laulu Mac Leauanae in October last year. The ministry was subsequently told off by the Public Service Commission, with the commissioner saying it was “not appropriate” and a case of “one agency getting it wrong”.

Chris Hipkins agreed. “It isn’t consistent with the government’s expectations and that’s been made very clear to the Ministry for Pacific Peoples,” he told reporters in New Plymouth.

“It is ultimately a matter for the public services commissioner to pursue but it isn’t consistent with what my expectations or the government’s expectations are.”

There hadn’t been “other examples” of extravagant spending like this at other ministries, said Hipkins, and where this sort of thing happened it was always uncovered. “It isn’t acceptable,” he said.

As Thomas Manch writes in The Press this morning, “tougher sentences and packed prisons are effectively guaranteed under any National-Act government”. The Act party announced its justice policy yesterday promising to direct judges to “hand down more jail time”. As a point of difference to National’s justice policy, Act says it wants to change the law that guides sentencing decisions and prioritise risk to the community and the potential of re-victimisation.

National wants to curb judges’ ability to discount sentences. As Manch notes, neither party has been able to estimate how these policies will impact prison numbers or what the cost of an increase in the number of thsoe in prison might be.

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The union representing secondary teachers is hopeful the newly signed pay deal will help keep teachers in New Zealand – and stop more disruption for students.

It was confirmed yesterday that teachers had overwhelmingly agreed to the proposed settlement, that carried with it a 14.5% pay bump.

PPTA acting president Chris Abercrombie told Newstalk ZB he was optimistic this agreement, which will remain in force until 2025, would stop more strike action. “We really want to make sure that we’ve got teachers in front of kids and this goes some way to helping that,” he said.

The only area lagging behind was support for Māori teachers, Abercrombie told RNZ. “Unfortunately we couldn’t get it this time,” he said. However, one of the recommendations was to create a “standing committee” that could handle issues as they arose without the need for strikes.

As for pay, while this deal was a good improvement over current conditions, it still lagged behind Australia. “But Australia has shortages of teachers too. It’s an international issue,” Abercrombie said. “We definitely think this will help with retention probably more than recruitment… we’ve still got some ways to go.”