Judith Collins and Jacinda Ardern. Photos / Mark Mitchell
Labour would be able to govern alone if the election were held today, according to a 1 News Colmar Brunton poll.
But the party has dropped five points to 48 per cent since July.
National has also dropped further to 31 per cent.
The first public political poll in two months landed tonight ahead of the first election debate between Labour Party leader Jacinda Ardern and National Party leader Judith Collins.
The poll is good news for the Act Party which has gone up to 7 per cent, while NZ First is still languishing at 2 per cent.
The Green Party is on 6 per cent.
Of parties outside Parliament, the New Conservatives are at 2 per cent, TOP, the Māori Party and Advance NZ on 1 per cent.
The results would mean Labour got 62 seats and could govern alone.
As preferred PM, Jacinda Ardern was on 54 per cent - holding her high popularity from July. Judith Collins had dropped slightly from 20 to 18 per cent.
David Seymour and Winston Peters were on 2 per cent.
Tonight's poll gives the state of play for the parties just before the TVNZ Leaders Debate.
Ardern told 1 News she was pleased with the result.
"Regardless we will not be complacent."
Collins had refused to be interviewed for the poll.
National's campaign chairman and deputy leader Gerry Brownlee said Collins was busy preparing for the TVNZ leaders debate.
He said Collins was getting a good reception from the public in the campaign.
The poll ran from Thursday until Monday night - taking in National's tax cuts announcement on Friday.
It shows while Labour has dropped from 53 to 48 per cent, its support is still holding strong. The second wave of Covid-19 hitting Auckland had come between the last poll and this.
Brownlee told 1 News the party would like to have gone up in support, but it took time for policy announcements to bed in with the voters.
Fourteen per cent of voters were undecided, in the poll.
Meanwhile, the Act Party has overtaken the Green Party in support.
Leader David Seymour said it was "very encouraging" and would only spur them on to campaign harder.
Seymour has been the party's only MP, but would get a caucus of nine MPs if the result was replicated on election night.
Seymour said the Covid-19 era seemed to have benefited the party, which has also campaigned against gun law reforms.
The Green Party had also not suffered from the controversy over co-leader James Shaw's advocacy for a grant to the Green School, a private school in Taranaki.
Shaw said the result would mean a Labour-Green Government, which was what he hoped for.
NZ First leader Winston Peters said polls were "rubbish".
The result will disappoint National, which had hoped to get some traction out of the tax cuts policy.
That policy will give workers between $8 and $58 a week more for a period of 16 months from December – at a cost of $4.7 billion to the Government in foregone revenue.
Although Labour's Grant Robertson revealed a $4 billion miscalculation in National's fiscal plan, that did not happen until Sunday at the tail end of the polling period.
Nor has Collins been able to capitalise on her start in the job, when she got 20 per cent as preferred PM in the July poll.
That was the highest any National leader had got since former Prime Minister Bill English took over.
It is also the first poll since more detailed information on the economic impact of Covid-19 has come out.
That included the news of a 12.2 per cent drop in GDP for the second quarter of the year and forecasts of high deficits and debt levels for a decade in the Pre-Election Fiscal Update.
The last 1 News Colmar Brunton poll was at the end of July – a fortnight after Collins took over the leadership of National and before a second outbreak of Covid-19 in Auckland on August 11.
That resulted in a return to a level 3 lockdown for Auckland and level 2 restrictions for the rest of New Zealand.
In that poll, Labour was on 53 per cent and National was down at 32 per cent while the Green Party and Act were at 5 per cent and NZ First at 2 per cent.
As preferred Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was on 54 per cent, and Judith Collins on 20 per cent.
The Wellington to Picton ferry had a technical issue and was being towed back to port.