A call to get testing up, who’s made gains in the latest political poll? And the president of France begins talks with Putin in the latest New Zealand Herald headlines. Video / NZ Herald
National's new leader is gaining support fast, with 39.3 per cent of people saying he is performing well.
The latest Newshub-Reid Research has Christopher Luxon outshining his predecessor Judith Collins and well ahead of her last result as leader by a whopping 17.6 per cent.
However, 21.3 per cent of those surveyed think he's performing badly and 28.3 per cent are still undecided.
And according to the poll, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is performing even better and 58.4 per cent think Ardern is doing a good job - up 1.5 per cent on the last result.
When asked if the Government has prepared well enough for the Omicron outbreak, the opinion was split with 44.5 per cent saying yes, 44.3 per cent saying no and 11.3 per cent not responding.
Meanwhile, the Green Party has overtaken Act, now at 9.6 per cent, up 2.4 points compared to Act on 8 per cent, down a massive eight percentage points.
Those results would give Labour 56 seats and the Green Party 12 - well above the 61 seats needed to form a government.
National would earn 39 seats and Act 10 seats.
Among the smaller parties Te Pāti Māori was on 2 per cent - giving it three seats, NZ First 1.8 per cent, The Opportunities Party 1.5 per cent and the Conservative Party 1.1 per cent.
Luxon was the preferred Prime Minister with 17.8 per cent of respondents, up 15.3 percentage points from his results in Newshub's last poll when Judith Collins was still leader.
PM Jacinda Ardern is still the strong favourite at 43.3 per cent, up 1.6 points.
Ardern told Newshub the poll results, which came after a tough few weeks for the Government with its handling of rapid antigen tests and MIQ, showed people had "confidence in our plan".
Speaking to RNZ this morning, she added that the good rating was a result of support for what the Government was doing.
"That has always been a plan based on making decisions that are in the best interest of New Zealanders, their health, their wellbeing and our economy.
"We are in a phase now of shifting up the way we're approaching the pandemic, moving to reopen, greater freedoms because we have extra tools to help us in the management of the pandemic and I think again people are generally supportive of that plan."
The poll was conducted between January 22 and February 4, with a margin of error of 3.1 per cent, meaning it would have just taken into account the border reopening plans announced on Thursday.
National Party leader Christopher Luxon said the poll results were "encouraging". Photo / Mark Mitchell
While Luxon said the results were "positive and encouraging".
Act leader David Seymour has taken a hit along with his party as preferred PM, down four points to 7.9 per cent.
Seymour told Newshub while they needed to work on getting back to previous "record levels of support", a lot of people would be worried about the fact the overall vote for the centre-right was not growing.
"It's not a bad result for a party like Act in this point at this political cycle."
But he said it showed Act needed to keep listening.
Act leader David Seymour says the poll shows it needs to listen more. Photo / Mark Mitchell
While Luxon's 17.8 per cent as preferred Prime Minister in his first Newshub poll was above former leader Judith Collins, who started at 14.6 per cent, it was well below Ardern's debut at 26.3 per cent and John Key at 24 per cent.
The poll comes after a 1 News-Kantar poll a week ago had support for National rising four points to 32 per cent, with most of that support also coming from Act.
That poll, the first under Luxon's leadership, had Labour down just 1 point to 40 per cent, with likely support party, the Greens, steady on nine per cent.
Act was down three points to 11 per cent, leaving the gap between National-Act and Labour-Green at 6 points, just two points narrower than the last poll, taken in early November when Judith Collins led National.
That 1 News poll also had Ardern's net approval rating at just +15, plummeting from +55 at the election.
