Clark dismisses interpretations of Maori voter poll

1.00pm

Claims that a poll shows the Maori Party could take all seven Maori seats off Labour have been criticised by Prime Minister Helen Clark.

The Marae-Digipoll found that 23.3 per cent of voters enrolled on the Maori roll said they would give their party vote to Labour, and 20.2 said they would give their party vote to the Maori Party.

Helen Clark said media coverage of the poll had focused on the "more dubious question" of who Maori would vote for with their electorate vote.

In the poll of 600, 35.7 per cent of Maori voters said they would vote for a Maori Party candidate in an electorate compared to 26.3 per cent who would vote for a Labour candidate.

"If you divided fewer than 600 people by seven (Maori seats) you don't get a statistically valid sample. It's absolute nonsense," Helen Clark said on Newstalk ZB this morning.

Helen Clark said there had not been a huge surge in support for the Maori Party at the expense of Labour.

"What you are seeing though on the party vote, and you may see on the electorate vote, is people who have never voted Labour... coming in behind this particular party," Helen Clark said.

It was a long way to the election and Maori had done well in recent years as had their Labour Maori MPs.

"At the end of the day people are going to weigh up who delivers for me and my family and there is only one answer to that," Helen Clark said.

Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia said she was pleasantly surprised by the poll.

"We knew that momentum was building but we didn't realise to what degree so we are very pleased," Mrs Turia told NZPA last night.

"We're pleasantly surprised and very hopeful that the goal of seven seats is actually achievable."

Mrs Turia was particularly pleased with the poll results in the Te Tai Tokerau and Waiariki seats where Maori Party support in those electorates was almost double the Labour Party support.

"In Tai Tokerau we're 42 per cent against Labour's 20.5 and Waiariki 38.2 against Labour's 18.6."

In Tamaki Makaurau and Te Tai Rawhiti, the Maori Party was about 3 per cent behind Labour and it was almost 7 per cent behind Labour in the Tainui and Te Tai Tonga seats, she said.

The party would be doing its own polling shortly, expecting results of that in about a month.

Mrs Turia had strong personal support in the Marae-DigiPoll. She was considered the most favoured Maori MP by 19.9 per cent of voters on the Maori roll, ahead of New Zealand First leader Winston Peters on 11.1 per cent, Associate Maori Affairs Minister John Tamihere on 6.7 per cent and Maori Affairs Minister Parekura Horomia on 5.4 per cent.

Mr Tamihere said it would be "silly" not to accept the Maori Party was a threat.

He said the Maori Party had had "all the running" on iwi radio stations and Maori television.

The poll of 938 Maori voters had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 per cent.

- NZPA