Claire Trevett: Whether the poll was a thumbs down for Budget or Chris Luxon’s Te Pāti Māori move, Chris Hipkins’ honeymoon is in the rear-view mirror

Say haere ra to the honeymoon, Chris Hipkins.

Was the latest 1News Kantar Public poll result showing a decent lift for National a shrug of indifference at the offerings of the Budget, or was it National hitting pay dirt with its “coalition of chaos” move to rule out Te Pāti Māori?

Whichever it was, if Prime Minister Chris Hipkins had hoped the Budget would restart his honeymoon with the voters following recent ructions in his caucus, he will be weeping into his cornies after tonight’s poll.

The one-point drop for Labour is far from catastrophic. It does not amount to a big thumbs down for Hipkins. The race remains close and a small resurgence for Labour or the Greens will pull them back into the game.

The shift was not because voters have suddenly embraced National leader Christopher Luxon – his popularity moved up only one to 18 per cent – although Hipkins dropped two to 25.

But the three-point lift for National means the poll is very good for the party. It is a boost to morale to overtake Labour again – and it indicates people are starting to listen to National again.

And that is bad news for Hipkins as he prepares to head to Labour’s big ra-ra the troops election-year conference this weekend.

Is it a stark reminder that times of high inflation and rising interest rates are a field day for Opposition parties – it is hard for any Government to get away with high inflation for too long without paying a price in the polls. National knows that, which is why it has been using the “addicted to spending” line on repeat, to ensure Labour cops as much of the blame for the situation as possible.

The polling started on the Saturday three days after the Budget and the indifferent results for Labour show people were clearly expecting more.

The main offerings of extending early childhood education subsidies to 2-year-olds, and dropping the $5 prescription fee offer substantial benefits to a relatively small number of people. It is not enough to move votes.

It is up against National’s policy of tax cuts – and National’s constant reminder to workers that Labour’s various cost-of-living solutions had delivered precious little to the vast bulk of working people.

It is also a warning to Hipkins that voters won’t necessarily buy his line (or care) that National will have to cut spending too much elsewhere to pay for its tax cuts.

The poll result may also be simpler than that, and reflect voters’ fondness for stability.

It is the first poll to take into account National’s move to rule out working with Te Pāti Māori on May 10 – the earlier Newshub Reid Research poll was almost completed when that happened.

That move was cannily timed to allow National to push the “coalition of chaos” message as trouble was running through the parties on the left like a bad dose of gastro.

Hipkins was dealing with Stuart Nash being sacked for Cabinet manual breaches and Meka Whaitiri jumping to Te Pāti Māori. The Green Party was going through the travails of Elizabeth Kerekere resigning. It looked messy and should come as absolutely no surprise to any political party that voters did not like it.

In the normal run of things, that would be fine for a Government – all of them end up jettisoning MPs for various reasons without much penalty. That is mainly because the Opposition usually looks even worse. If things run smoothly from here, the chances of recovery are fairly high.

But when the Opposition looks solid and stable, it is much harder to get off scot-free for it.