Greens get no traction from oil

It should be the stuff of dreams for the Green Party: an oil crisis in the heat of an election campaign.

But about the only thing around oil that hasn't skyrocketed in the last few weeks is the Green's poll rating.

With Labour and National hoovering up third-party support, the Greens are just ahead of the 5 per cent of the vote they need to survive.

Co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons admits she finds it hard to fathom.

"I would like to see us get more profile over that. But I just don't know why it is really.

"Quite frankly, what I've noticed is that the moment an issue we've been campaigning on for ages becomes big news, we get dropped right out of it.

"Same thing happened with Zimbabwe and the cricket tour."

The struggle the Green Party faces is one its Labour allies will be watching acutely, particularly after Sunday's One News Colmar Brunton poll gave National an eight-point buffer over Labour.

Although rolling poll averages still have the Greens at around 6 per cent, left-leaning voters could be tempted to slip from the Green Party to shore up Labour.

Yet an election night result that left the Greens short of 5 per cent could give National the upper hand in trying to form a government. The Green Party advertising will include messages about oil prices, but otherwise no "blockbuster" campaign breaker is planned.