KEY POINTS:
Political parties will be watching the polls even more intently after the latest survey showed the election could go down to the wire.
TV3's poll, released last night, put Labour and the Greens in a position where they would together hold 59 seats in a 123-member Parliament.
National
and its right-wing ally ACT would also have 59 seats, or 60 if United Future leader Peter Dunne joined them.
That meant neither of the main parties would have a majority, and the Maori Party would be in the middle.
The key feature of the poll was that the Greens, maintaining a trend that has developed over the last few weeks, were up to 8.8 per cent support which would give them 11 seats.
They appear to have grabbed some of Labour's support, which went down nearly two points to 37.4 per cent while National was steady on 45.1 per cent.
ACT was on 1.7 per cent, meaning it would win just two seats.
New Zealand First was still the problem party.
Its support was up from 2.7 per cent to 3.5 but without an electorate seat it has to reach 5 per cent to hold seats.
If it achieves that it could become an important ally for Labour, because National's leader John Key has said he won't work with Winston Peters after the election.
The TV3 poll supported other recent surveys which have shown the gap between the centre-right and the centre-left closing, but some polls have indicated National still holds an election-winning lead.
A TV One poll last Sunday show National leading Labour by 14 points, and on October 18 a Fairfax Neilsen poll showed a gap of 18 points.
Today Labour leader Helen Clark and Mr Key will keep up the pressure.
Miss Clark is campaigning in Rotorua while Mr Key visits Greymouth.
Campaign developments yesterday included:
* National said it would increase funding for subsidised medicines by $40 million in 2009/10, rising to $80 million over the following two years.
It would cover the party's previously stated commitment to fund a full year's Herceptin treatment for breast cancer sufferers and other specialised medicines;
* Finance Minister Michael Cullen released the latest KiwiSaver statistics showing 827,000 people enrolled. He used the figures to attack National, saying the party would gut the scheme;
* Maori Party co-leader Pita Sharples said his party and Labour were still "joined at the hip" and he would prefer Labour to win the most seats because that was what his supporters wanted;
* National's Lockwood Smith was again under fire for saying Pacific migrant workers had to be shown how to use toilets and showers, and that Asians were better at picking fruit.
Miss Clark and Mr Peters said his remarks were racist; and
* Miss Clark used a campaign meeting in Auckland to announce New Zealand and England would compete in rugby for the Hillary Shield, inaugurated to honour the memory of Sir Edmund Hillary.
- NZPA
