Posted by Blogger Name. Category:
Claire Trevett
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David Cunliffe
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Herald DigiPoll
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John Key
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Kim Dotcom
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Labour leadership
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Labour Party
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MegaMana
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Mike Moore
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National Party
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Russel Norman
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The Greens
In three months and three days, New Zealand goes to the polls to elect its 51st Parliament. And if the Labour Party wasn't already worried enough about poll trends, the Herald has heaped more misery on this morning.
The latest Herald-DigiPoll is out, and like other polls in the last couple of months, it's pretty emphatic. Herald deputy political editor Claire Trevett has the details:
The Internet-Mana Party would get two seats in Parliament based on the first major poll since the two parties cut a deal to stand together.
But, three months shy of the election, Labour is still struggling and the left bloc is well adrift from National, which could easily govern alone based on the Herald-DigiPoll survey.
The results for the Mana Party, Internet Party and Internet-Mana Party totalled 1.4 per cent in the survey - a modest start for the newly launched party which was the centre of attention in the lead-up to the polling period.
That is enough to get new Internet Party leader Laila Harre into Parliament if Mana leader Hone Harawira holds his Te Tai Tokerau electorate.
But the votes appear to have been at the expense of the Green Party which dropped to 11 per cent, down 2.5 points since the last Herald-DigiPoll survey in March.
That will worry the Greens, especially if Internet-Mana, bankrolled with $3 million from Kim Dotcom, starts to pick up more momentum.
Polling began on June 6, soon after Mana and Internet agreed to stand as a joint force to try to maximise the number of MPs Mr Harawira could take into Parliament under the "coat-tailing" provisions of MMP.
Although the deal was criticised by many commentators and rival political parties, 39 per cent of those polled said the Internet-Mana arrangement was a legitimate use of MMP while 43 per cent said it was an unprincipled rort.
That MegaMana is starting to cut into the Green vote is no surprise. Readers will remember that when Russel Norman visited Dotcom's rental property at Coatesville last year, he urged the Large German Gentleman to consider not starting a party for that very reason.
But the Greens' worries are small compared to those of Labour; Trevett continues:
With a party vote based on the poll of 50.4 per cent, National maintains a strong lead and is 20 points ahead of Labour which is up one to 30.5 per cent. National would have 64 seats, enough to govern without any support partners and 10 more seats than the left bloc of Labour, the Greens and Internet-Mana.
Labour leader David Cunliffe has rallied slightly, although Labour's efforts to beat the anti-immigration drum just before the poll began do not appear to have had much traction. Labour inched back over the 30 per cent mark and Mr Cunliffe's personal ratings as preferred Prime Minister have nudged up from 11 to 13 per cent since March.
He is still adrift of his high of 17 per cent immediately after his election last September and continues to poll lower than former leader David Shearer did. NZ First was steady on 3.6 per cent - not enough to return to Parliament though its support tends to lift during the campaign.
The poll indicates Prime Minister John Key has escaped the fallout from the trial and resignation of former Act MP John Banks, which broke the day before the poll began. Mr Key held steady at 66 per cent as preferred Prime Minister. Those who believed the Government was heading in the right direction lifted to 56 per cent - the highest since just before the 2011 election.
The poll of 750 eligible voters was taken from June 6 to June 15 and has a margin of error of +/- 3.6 per cent. There were 12.2 per cent undecided voters on the party vote.
This must be terribly discouraging for Mr Cunliffe and his Labour colleagues. They've thrown everything but the kitchen sink at National and Judith Collins in particular, and it's barely made a blind bit of difference. John Key remains the preferred Prime Minister for two thirds of those surveyed, whilst David Cunliffe is the preferred choice of less than one in seven New Zealanders.
And when Parliament resumes this afternoon after a two-week recess, sans John Banks, Labour will be on the defensive again. Instead of being able to attack the Government, Labour has its own donation woes, and if what we were hearing yesterday from a variety of unrelated people is true, yesterday's story is only the tip of the iceberg.
The clock is ticking on Labour. After Friday (i.e. three months out from the election), Labour can change leaders without going to the membership for another Labour's Got Talent tour. Have the polls yet reached the point where they might do a Mike Moore (1990), or will they stick with Mr Cunliffe then cut him adrift after what is looking likely to be a third successive defeat at the polls?
These are interesting times indeed, and the Herald-DigiPoll has just made them a whole lot more interesting!
