KEY POINTS:
Prime Minister Helen Clark says three polls over the weekend that show Labour closing the gap on National are "encouraging".
National still has enough support to government alone, but the latest polls indicate a trend of growing support - that has existed for most of this year - could be starting to reverse.
On Saturday, a Fairfax Media-Nielsen poll showed Labour had clawed its way back from a 24-point deficit last month to 16 points.
Last night a TV One poll showed the gap narrowing from 26 points a month ago to 17 points.
National was on 52 per cent support, down three points, and Labour had gained six points to 35 per cent.
A TV3 poll showed National losing two points to 48 per cent support and Labour steady on 35, a 13-point gap compared with 15 at the start of June.
Helen Clark said those results were "positive" and "encouraging", but there was clearly more work to do.
She put the small turnaround down to people distinguishing between what events the Government had control over and which they didn't - namely petrol prices and the flow-on effects of the international credit crunch.
National's policy releases had also helped.
"I think we have seen the Opposition more on the backfoot in the last month or so," she said on TVNZ's Breakfast programme.
"They've started to come out with policy that is very unpopular. If there is one thing that has got people galvanised it's their policy to privatise the ACC, that's gone down like the proverbial lead balloon."
Minor parties recorded little change in the latest polls, with the Greens managing to stay above the 5 per cent threshold for seats under MMP and New Zealand First still below it.
National's leader John Key was still more popular as preferred prime minister than Helen Clark, but she was starting to close in on him.
The Government still has a long way to go for it have a fighting chance of winning the election, which must be held by November 15.
Helen Clark has said Labour will regain support when the campaign starts and National has to release its core policies.
If that trend has started now it will be good news for Labour, which for months has had to deal with polls showing National holding as lead of more than 20 points which would give it a landslide win in an election.
- NZPA
