The last Taxpayers’ Union/Curia poll for the year has been released and it has dire news for Labour. This is the third poll in as many weeks and all say that if an election were held today we would have a change of government. We now await the last Newshub poll for the year.
After a hammering in the Hamilton West by-election, the Labour Party won’t like the latest poll released today. What is likely to be the last scientific poll for the year suggests that the National-ACT bloc is beginning to open up a reasonable lead over Labour-Greens as we head into election year. The poll shows Christopher Luxon also narrowing the gap in his personal ratings against Jacinda Ardern.
But it is far too early to write off the prospect of the Government being re-elected next year. Jacinda Ardern remains a formidable campaigner – and the Government has far more power than an Opposition to set the political agenda.
The problem for Labour is the albatross around her neck that is the Government’s radical reform programme: Three Waters and the TVNZ/RNZ merger to name but two.
The quick U-turn a few months ago on the KiwiSaver tax changes signalled a Government hungry for re-election but the Prime Minister’s inability to change course or sack ministers going rogue tells a different story.
Ardern’s failure to sack Nanaia Mahuta is a prime example. As was reported in this morning’s NZ Herald, it is now clear Nanaia Mahuta was getting advice on Three Waters entrenchment a month before the vote yet failed to share this with her own caucus. National and ACT have called for her to be dismissed – we agree.
The Labour Party needs to ask itself whether it actually wants to win the next election or not. If it does, it needs to drop these unpopular and politically toxic reforms – and quickly.
Taxpayers’ Union
| Party | Support | Change from last month |
| National | 39.4% | +1.8 |
| Labour | 33.1% | -2.2 |
| ACT | 10.4% | +0.5 |
| Green | 8.1% | +0.3 |
| Maori | 3.5% | +1.9 |
| NZ First | 2.9% | -0.9 |
| Other | 2.7% | -1.3 |
That translates into a clear majority for an ACT/National government:
For preferred prime minister, Jacinda Ardern is unchanged from last month on 35% while Christopher Luxon jumps up 5 points to 26%.
David Seymour is up 1 point to 7.1% and Winston Peters increases 0.9 points to 3.4% while Chlöe Swarbrick drops 2.7 points to 3.1%.
Taxpayers Union
And net favourabilities are up for Luxon as well:
Jacinda Ardern’s net favourability has dropped 5 points compared to last month from +8% to +3%. This is a new low for the Prime Minister in our poll.
Christopher Luxon is now almost level with the prime minister with an increase in his net favourability of 5 points from -3% to +2%.
As a note of caution, however, when it comes to undecided voters, the Prime Minister maintains a strong lead on net favourability on +1% compared with Christopher Luxon on -29%.
Taxpayers’ Union
If Jacinda Ardern decides to quit, Labour has serious issues as their likely replacement for leader would be Grant Robertson, and his favourabilities are plumbing Andrew Little-style depths.
After three dreadful polls, public anger over Three Waters, negative press over MIQ and the pandemic response, as well as confirmation of serious conflict of interest issues by Nanaia Mahuta it is little wonder that Jacinda Ardern’s “kindness” mask slipped right off in Parliament yesterday.
Her “kindness” schtick has been destroyed forever in five seconds of ill-tempered behaviour in the House. Having to announce that six of her MPs have signalled retirement as preferable to staring at the prospects of a lengthy term in opposition will have really grated too. It is of little consolation that all of the six are dead set useless anyway.
The trend says it all, Labour is inexorably sliding into oblivion. The voters have had a gutsful. This Labour Government has shown that they are arrogant and out of touch. The carnage to Labour is going to be massive. All their policy settings are baked in now, there is little meaningful that they can do to arrest the slide and any massive budget bribes will be too little too late for them. By the time the election rolls around most people will have forgotten what the bribes even were.
Labour are going to go nasty. For five years they’ve hidden behind “kindness” and other slogans like “open and transparent”, but what we have seen is they are just that, slogans. There is nothing left in their tank but bitterness and Ardern showed that yesterday.
She thinks she is a hero, but she is now despised more than even Sir Robert Muldoon. Voters can’t wait to see the back of her. Let’s hope she has a fit of the vapours and decides to jack it in early. Either way, it’s the glue factory for Labour and its leader.
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