Maori voters back Jacinda Ardern for PM: poll

Jacinda Ardern received 42.2 per cent support as preferred prime minister while her deputy Kelvin Davis was preferred by 3.3 per cent of respondents. Photo / Kelvin Davis

New Labour leader Jacinda Ardern is easily the preferred prime minister of voters on the Maori roll - with more than 42 per cent of respondents in a new poll backing her.

The Maori Television-Reid Research poll asked voters on the Maori roll who their preferred prime minister was, and which party they would vote for.

On the preferred prime minister question, Ardern was 42.2 per cent, ahead of New Zealand First leader Winston Peters on 17.5 per cent, with Prime Minister Bill English on 5.5 per cent.

The result for Peters came despite his pledge this year to hold a referendum to ask Kiwis if the Maori seats should be abolished.

Te Tai Tokerau MP and new Labour deputy leader Kelvin Davis was the preferred PM of 3.3 per cent of respondents, ahead of Maori Party co-leader and Waiariki MP Te Ururoa Flavell (3 per cent) and Mana leader Hone Harawira (1.5 per cent).

Labour picked up 46.5 per cent in the poll, ahead of the Maori Party (17.5 per cent), New Zealand First (13.8 per cent), National (9.5 per cent) and the Green Party (9 per cent). Mana was on 1.8 per cent, with The Opportunities Party (Top) on 1.5 per cent.

The margin of error on the poll is 1.95 per cent, and it surveyed 2515 voters between July 11 and August 17.

Labour traditionally performs strongly in Maori roll polling, and the results are overall - they do not show how close the contest is in each of the seven Maori seats.

The party holds six of the seven seats. This election the Maori Party has agreed not to run a candidate against Mana's Hone Harawira in Te Tai Tokerau, with Mana not contesting the other seats.

Electoral Commission statistics show 55 per cent are on the Maori roll and 45 per cent on the general roll.

The Maori seats were created in 1867 to improve Maori representation in Parliament. Initially four seats, they expanded to seven seats in 2002.

Peters earlier this year said his party wants a public referendum in the next parliamentary term on whether to keep or get rid of the seats. It is a bottom line for his party.

The Maori Party and Mana leader Hone Harawira have called for the seats to be entrenched so they are better protected and Labour has said it will not agree to a referendum on the seats.

Until 2008, National had advocated abolishing the seats altogether, but that was put on ice as part of the agreement with the Maori Party.