National and Labour 'deadlock'- new poll shows one-point margin

Christopher Luxon now leads the most popular party in Parliament but does not have enough support to form a government. Photo / Marty Melville

A new poll has Labour and National almost deadlocked, with just one point between them, but for the first time in five years, Labour's pollsters have found Labour and the Greens could not form a Government, even they were helped by NZ First or Te Pāti Māori.

For the first time in 14 years, more people feel negatively about the direction of the country than think it is heading on the right track.

The latest commercial poll from Talbot Mills, who also poll for the Labour Party, has National on 37 per cent with Labour on 36 per cent. The poll was obtained by Newstalk ZB.

Act is on 10 per cent and the Greens on 9 per cent.

A commentary released with the poll described this as deadlock.

"This poll produced an effective deadlock. The only path to a Government would seem to be for Te Pati Maori to take the risky and highly unlikely step of supporting a National and Act coalition," the commentary said.

It was the first poll since February 2017 in which Labour and the Greens could not form a Government, even if it had the support of Te Pati Maori and NZ First.

The commentary said the right-track wrong track indicator, which measures whether people, on balance, feel positively or negatively about the country, went negative for the first time since 2008.

"The right track-wrong track indicator also went into net negative for the first time since a very brief dive during the Global Financial Crisis in 2008. 42 per cent believe the country is heading in the right direction and 50 per cent off on the wrong track," the commentary said.

The poll also weighed in on the decision taken by Green Party delegates to oust James Shaw as leader.

The poll tested the "possible impact of the removal of James Shaw as co-leader". This showed 6 per cent of voters being more likely to support the Greens without Shaw, but 19 per cent of voters less likely to support the Greens.

The pollster warned that "polling on hypotheticals like this does need to be carefully interpreted".

Ardern was still ahead in measurements of personal popularity. She polled 39 per cent as preferred prime minister, compared with National leader Christopher Luxon who polled 26 and Act leader David Seymour who polled 9 per cent.

The poll was taken between July 28 and August 8.