Final polls leave race too close to call

The election race remains too close to call, with two polls in the past 24 hours giving Labour and National big leads respectively and a third putting only two percentage points between them.

This morning's Herald-DigiPoll gives Labour a substantial lead, with 44.6 per cent compared with National's 37.4 per cent.

None of the minor parties reached the crucial 5 per cent threshold -- a worry not only for them but also for the big parties looking for coalition options.

But last night's One News/Colmar Brunton poll had National six points ahead of Labour, on 44 per cent, while a 3 News TNS poll puts Labour on 40.5 per cent and National on 38.7 per cent.

Labour's rating in the Herald poll was up four percentage points on last week, while National was down 2.7 per cent.

The Greens had the most support, down one to 4.6 per cent, but they do not have a safe electorate seat to get them back into Parliament.

New Zealand First was down 2.6 points, to 4.5, making leader Winston Peters' battle to retain his Tauranga seat even more crucial.

United Future attracted 2.6 per cent support, up from 1.9 per cent, but leader Peter Dunne is expected to comfortably retain his Ohariu-Belmont seat, ACT faces political oblivion with only 1.3 per cent (down 0.6) and slim electorate prospects, while Progressives leader Jim Anderton should retain Wigram, despite his party having only 1.1 per cent support (up 0.7 per cent).

Support for the Maori Party was down 0.5 per cent to 2.3 per cent but voters are expected to return leader Tariana Turia in Te Tai Hauauru and give at least two other candidates seats.

DigiPoll director Gabriel Dekel said the poll came could not be seen as a predicted result because of the extreme volatility shown in polling throughout the campaign.

Last week, the Herald-DigiPoll survey had Labour and National virtually neck and neck.

"To get a correct picture when people are shifting their views so quickly, you need a high-speed camera," Dr Dekel said.

Quality control checks, in which respondents to this week's poll were contacted again after three days, showed that 20 per cent had changed their minds.

The biggest shifts were among Aucklanders, women and the aged, and this poll also had higher Maori participation.

The poll of 1000 voters was conducted between last Friday and Wednesday this week and had a margin of error of 3.1 per cent.

Last night's One News/Colmar Brunton poll gave slightly better news for minor parties.

In the 3 News poll, New Zealand First is up 1.8 points to 6.8 per cent support and in the One News poll is steady on 6 per cent support.

The Green Party is on 6.9 per cent support (down 0.1 per cent) in the 3 News poll but is down one point to 5 per cent support -- right on the party vote threshold -- in the One News poll.

Translated into seats in Parliament, the 3 News poll would give Labour 50 seats, National 48, NZ First eight, the Greens eight, Maori Party two, United Future four and the Progressives one seat resulting in an overhang of one in a 121-seat Parliament.

The One News poll would give National 54 seats, Labour 47, NZ First seven, Greens six, United Future three, Maori Party two and Progressive Party one.

This is based on United Future, the Progressives and the Maori Party each winning an electorate seat.

The Herald Digi-Poll would give Labour an outright majority as the proportion of seats would be decided on 88 per cent of the total cast -- a figure reached by deducting the total of the minor parties.

That would give Labour 61 seats out of 120 and National just 51.

- NZPA

* Each week the Herald has examined an aspect of the poll-of-polls. Each point on the chart represents the average of the four most recently published of the full-sample Herald DigiPoll, Colmar Brunton (TV1), UMR (National Business Review), TNS (TV3) and BRC (Sunday Star-Times). All five are in the mix at all times, but the average at any one time is a different combination of the five polls. ACNielsen's poll for Fairfax is omitted as having limited history.