Act steals Labour votes with one-nation treaty policy

The latest poll shows Labour slipping into trouble and National resuming the slide it has been on all year, apart from a brief boost courtesy of Apec.

By Colin James

The spin from the Labour camp yesterday was that much of the fieldwork for today's New Zealand Herald-DigiPoll survey would have been done before this week's bad headlines for National.

Nevertheless, the poll says Labour is in trouble.

The DigiPoll continues a trend now embedded in all polls: a steep decline since May in Labour's support from 45 per cent to 35 per cent, and in support for Labour and the Alliance combined, from a comfortable winning level of 53 per cent to an at-best-marginal 44 per cent.

In the past month, this fall has been matched by a rise in Act's support since Richard Prebble relaunched his party's "one country" Treaty of Waitangi policy with full drama on One Tree Hill.

Between last month's DigiPoll and today's, Labour dropped 5 per cent and Act rose nearly 4 per cent.

Though the Alliance rose also, by nearly 3 per cent (perhaps as a result of Jim Anderton's accomplished performance in Monday's leaders' debate), the Labour-Act exchange suggests that Act's treaty policy may be biting into Labour.

There is a small amount of support for this in the DigiPoll demographics. While the numbers are too small to draw firm conclusions, there appears in this latest poll to be a bulge in Act's standing among those on low-to-middle incomes compared with its average profile in earlier polls.

It is in these income groups that one would be most likely to find social conservatives susceptible to the treaty message who might previously have been soft supporters of Labour on economic grounds or just wished to be rid of National.

If this is so, it is something to which Labour can offer no answer - except to try to get the election focused on other things.

Helen Clark looked as if she might be about to try to do that at her launch on Sunday when she talked of "vision" and "hope" and national identity. But she failed to take up Paul Holmes' gift-wrapped invitation to develop this in the leaders' debate.

The right bloc needs something like Mr Prebble's treaty gambit. Apart from a brief lift after Apec, National has slid all year, back below its 1996 score in the latest two DigiPolls. This trend is evident in all nationally published polls.

Unless National can regain momentum during the election campaign, it may have to rely on the audacious campaigning of Mr Prebble to substitute for its own leader's sedate style, epitomised in the launch last Sunday. The whole of the National/Act bloc's lift of more than 3 per cent between last month's DigiPoll and this is due to Act.

Labour and Alliance still hold a lead over National and Act in today's poll. But that lead is only 1 per cent, and the trends suggest a crossover in poll support this weekend, unless this week's campaigning has begun to reverse the trends.

There are other worries for the left. Adding Peter Dunne's seat to the right's total negates the left's 1 per cent lead, making the two sides equal at 57-all in seats, and puts the composition of the Government in the hands of New Zealand First.

And if Tau Henare or Tuariki Delamere win their seats (which cannot be ruled out), National could offer them more preferment than Labour, which has Maori MPs of its own with strong claims to ministerial posts.

On today's poll, adding Mr Henare's and Mr Delamere's seats to National's side would give the right bloc a one-seat edge over the left bloc. (The reason it is not a two-seat edge is because of the way MMP votes are counted.)

Hence the growing importance of the Greens. Adding them into the left bloc would give that group a three-seat lead over the right bloc (including Mr Dunne, Mr Henare and Mr Delamere). New Zealand First might in those circumstances back the Labour side as having the most seats.

* Tomorrow: the Herald's poll of polls.