Labour holds on to strong poll lead

A new poll shows Labour's fortunes continue to improve.

Six weeks from the election, the latest One News-Colmar Brunton poll has Labour on 45 per cent, National on 41 and New Zealand First on 5.

No other party made it over the 5 per cent threshold.

The poll continues the trend first seen in the Herald-DigiPoll survey 10 days ago which had Labour in the lead by 6.4 percentage points. Labour was then on 43.9 per cent, National on 37.5 and NZ First on 7.1.

A National Business Review poll has also shown Labour leading.

The latest swing in Labour's favour can be attributed to its policy of abolishing interest on student loans for people who stay in the country. This is likely to have won over many of the 450,000 New Zealanders with such debt.

In comparison, National's policy of giving tax deductions for the interest paid on student loans was seen by many as complicated and biased towards people on high incomes.

In the past two weeks Labour has also criticised National over its foreign policy, in particular its stance on New Zealand's nuclear-free status and its ties to the United States.

But National has yet to release its major tax-cut policy, which could win back voters from Labour.

The TVNZ poll shows Helen Clark is still preferred Prime Minister with 41 per cent support, but Don Brash climbed 5 points to 25 per cent. Winston Peters dropped 4 points to 9.

The biggest losers in the poll were the Greens, down 3 points to 3 per cent. Act made a modest improvement of 1 point to 2 per cent. If the poll was translated to seats in the House, neither the Greens nor Act would be in the next Parliament.

Labour would have 57 seats, National 53 and NZ First seven.

It is assumed that United Future leader Peter Dunne, Progressives leader Jim Anderton and Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia would all keep their electorate seats. In that case Labour would need NZ First to form a Government.

National would need NZ First plus one other, possibly United Future.

The poll of 1000 people, with a margin of error of 3.2 per cent, was conducted between Monday and Thursday.