KEY POINTS:
Prime Minister Helen Clark says she does not believe National's support is really as high as the polls suggest.
TV One's Colmar Brunton poll last night had National on 53 per cent, up 1 percentage point from last month, and Labour unchanged on 36 per cent.
But Miss Clark said today that she did not accept "for a moment" that National had the backing of more than half of the electorate.
"Let's face it, Labour won the 1999 election and formed a government off the basis of 38 point something, probably the average polling at the moment is 38 point something," she said.
"One of the issues is that the smaller parties on the centre, centre/right of politics have had their support drop away a lot and the National Party's picked up that for the time being. It's a long way to go until the next election."
Miss Clark told Newstalk ZB she believed Labour was making "some headway", despite last night's poll.
"I don't think that poll would have picked up more recent developments and it's usually on the low end of Labour's support and the high end of National's support," she said.
Problems the Government has faced recently include the exit of former Cabinet Minister David Benson-Pope for being less than open with the public about what he knew of the Madeleine Setchell case.
Miss Clark said the Government was dealing with the issues it needed to deal with.
"Obviously I'm looking for improved performance from ministers and when people fall short they're not with us any more, as happened a couple of weeks ago."
According to the poll, the Green Party registered 5 per cent support, New Zealand First 3 per cent and the Maori Party, United Future and ACT were all on just 1 per cent.
In the preferred prime minister stakes, National leader John Key led Miss Clark, with 33 per cent and 30 per cent respectively. Mr Key had dropped 2 percentage points, while Miss Clark clawed one point back.
The poll sampled 1000 voters and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 per cent.
- NZPA
