KEY POINTS:
Today's Herald-DigiPoll survey is grim reading for Labour for reasons other than the obvious.
It's not just that it has slipped a further 5 percentage points behind National. The party's frustration is that this has happened after a sustained period when the Labour-led minority Government had been functioning more effectively than it has for quite some time, give or take the odd distraction.
But there has been no payoff in the polls. Sometimes a mood shift in the electorate can take time to register in the polls. Labour will be praying that this is the case. But that is really clutching at straws.
The electorate's mood gives every appearance of having solidified. Not only have voters taken the phone off the hook, in Labour's case, they have buried it deep in the bottom drawer.
And not only in Labour's case. NZ First's waving of the flag of economic nationalism combined with an injudicious bit of Asian-bashing has done nothing to lift its stocks.
Winston Peters' party is registering at a paltry 1.5 per cent.
Essentially NZ First's parliamentary future hinges on whether Peters has a good election campaign, as he did in 2002, or a bad one, as occurred in 2005.
It is not entirely coincidental that National was in a weakened state in 2002, from which it had largely recovered three years later.
Since 2005, National has vacuumed up most of NZ First's remaining support. To wrest back those voters, Peters will argue that it is essential NZ First be in Parliament to keep a National Government on the straight and narrow.
But it is probably too early for voters to be focusing on such messages. Peters' ability to grab attention - no doubt enhanced by his standing in Tauranga against National's Bob Clarkson - means he can bide his time until campaigning proper starts.
Labour is simply running out of time. Four months of election year have passed without it having made any discernible inroads into National's support.
Ideally, Labour would have wanted to go into the Budget, now only three weeks away, on something of a roll. Instead, the Budget will now inevitably be burdened with the expectation that it be Labour's circuit-breaker. The risk is that expectations of its contents are raised to such dangerously high levels that Finance Minister Michael Cullen cannot satisfy them.
The Budget is not Labour's last throw of the dice. It will save some big announcements for the formal election campaign. The Prime Minister does not believe in circuit-breakers anyway. She has repeatedly said Labour's core support is holding steady, positioning the party to tackle National head on in the swinging vote territory of middle-income New Zealand when voters start thinking seriously about the choices on offer.
So it will be particularly galling for Labour that the Herald poll shows John Key making significant gains among one segment of the electorate where Helen Clark has traditionally dominated - female voters.
Adding to the agony, National's leader is at his highest rating as preferred Prime Minister despite Labour's campaign to denigrate and discredit him as "Slippery John".
The gender breakdown shows Key is drawing female voters away from Clark.
That is important because her cross-over appeal has drawn female voters to Labour who might not otherwise contemplate voting for the party.
Whether they have shifted to National as a result of Key softening his party's image or are turned off by Labour's attacks on Key or are simply reacting to increased pressures on household Budgets, Labour must win them back.
Potential circuit-breaker or not, Budget Day is the one day Labour will have voters' undivided attention. If the polls don't budge, then what? The load on Cullen's shoulders just got heavier.
