Labour takes a dive and Luxon breathes a sigh of relief.
Four years after the “teal wave” announced itself across the Tasman, the surge in support for the Opportunity Party has been confirmed as very real in New Zealand. The election ahead rests unmistakably on a knife edge, while the tide has gone out for Labour. That brings some balm for National, but the two big parties have fallen, combined, to a record low.
Those are the headline messages contained in the new Curia poll for the Taxpayers’ Union, which comes after a hectic fortnight in New Zealand politics.
Following unplanned remarks at the end of his post-cabinet press conference last week, Christopher Luxon’s office confirmed that National had indeed ruled out working after the election with the Opportunity Party to form a government.
That has not apparently done any harm to the party that presents itself as an alternative to New Zealand First as kingmaker. Under new leader Qiulae Wong it has put itself into a strong position to become the first party to arrive in parliament that has not emerged from a pre-existing group with a presence in the house.
The Curia/TPU survey is the first major New Zealand poll to put Opportunity across the 5% threshold, up 2.8 points to 6.1%. Despite that, even if an unprecedented four-party deal were to be struck combining Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori, it would not be enough to change the government.
On these numbers, the sitting coalition of National, New Zealand First and Act would win 61 of 120 seats. That could change, however, were TPM (down 1.9 points to 1.5%) to hold more than two of the seven Māori electorates it will contest – six of which it won in 2023 and four of which it currently holds. That would likely create an overhang, and bring into prospect a dead heat.
After a miserable couple of weeks for National and its leader, these numbers offer some sort of consolation, with the party stable (up 0.5 points to 31%) and Luxon improving as preferred prime minister, albeit to just 23.3%. This may prove enough to staunch fresh speculation around his leadership as National prepares to unveil tomorrow its list ranking.
Labour has fallen to its lowest level in this poll for more than 18 months, down 3.7 points to 27.8%. It may be that Opportunity’s gain is Labour’s loss, but this is a bad result for Chris Hipkins’ party, hovering just above the 2023 result of 26.9%.
The survey was in the field from Saturday August 1 to Tuesday August 4, so does not capture all of the fallout from Luxon’s clumsy outing in Rotorua, nor any of his impromptu MMP announcement on Newstalk ZB yesterday.
It does, however, follow Winston Peters’ outburst in the house targeting Green MP Lawrence Xu-Nan and China, which were condemned as racist by Luxon and almost everyone else, and sparked a minor diplomatic incident. New Zealand First fall 1.7 points to 9.1%.
ACT gains 0.4 points to 7.3% and the Greens fall 0.3 points to 10.1%.
On the preferred prime minister count, neither Chris is inspiring hearts and minds, though Luxon can boast opening up a lead over Hipkins. He records 23.2% (up 4.1) to Hipkins’ 19.8% (up 0.6).
And when you look at the support for the two big parties – the purple vote – the slump continues. The most recent TVNZ/Verian poll had the two parties on a combined 61%, a 30-year low.
Here, their combined support is a shocking 58.1%, the first time that number has gone below 60% in the five-and-a-half years the poll has been running.
The poll surveyed 1,000 people and has a maximum margin of error of +/- 3.1%.
