Labour leader Chris Hipkins won't be happy with his party's result in the latest 1News poll, nor will he be happy to see the gap between him and Christopher Luxon on preferred Prime Minister closing. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Labour has crashed to its worst result in six years in the latest 1News Verian poll, which shows National and Act could comfortably form a government.
The poll, released tonight, had Labour on 29 per cent, down four percentage points on the last poll in July.
Meanwhile, National had jumped two points to 37 and Act is up one point to 13.
Those results would give National 48 seats in Parliament and Act 17, meaning together the parties would have 65 seats and enough for a majority of the 120-seat House.
The Green Party was on 12 per cent, up two points from the last poll. Te Pāti Māori held steady on 3 per cent.
Labour’s 37 seats with the Greens’ 15 and Te Pāti Māori’s three combined to only 55 seats
New Zealand First was bumped up one point to 4 per cent - close to the 5 per cent threshold to enter Parliament.
The Opportunities Party, Freedoms NZ and Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis were all on 1 per cent.
Twelve per cent of people polled didn’t know how they would vote or would not say.
In the preferred Prime Minister ratings, Labour leader Chris Hipkins had experienced a similar fate to his party, dropping three points to 21 per cent.
However, he was still in front of National’s Christopher Luxon, but only by 1 per cent. Luxon was at 20 per cent in the latest poll.
Act’s David Seymour was on 6 per cent, down one point, for preferred PM, while NZ First’s Winston Peters jumped one point to 3 per cent.
It was Labour’s lowest result in the poll in six years, 1News reported.
Hipkins told 1News the campaign hadn’t yet started as Labour had been still in Government.
Out of five 1News polls this year, all had shown a decrease in support for Labour.
Hipkins said “absolutely not”, when asked by 1News if he was worried. Luxon claimed it was clear Labour was running out of time in Government.
Tonight’s poll was conducted between August 12-16, during which time Labour promised to cut GST from fresh and frozen fruit and vegetables - a policy widely condemned by tax experts but which was popular with the public according to some polling.
Labour also said it would provide more support to low-income households through Working for Families and it promised to offer four weeks of paid partner leave after childbirth from 2026.
The Green Party also launched its proposal to give Kiwis $36,000 in loans and grants for home energy upgrades.
A poll conducted by Talbot Mills for its corporate clients was also released during the 1News Verian polling period and showed Labour on 32 per cent, up one percentage point from its previous poll and National on 35 per cent, down one point.
The Talbot Mills poll’s period largely overlapped with that of August 10′s Taxpayers’ Union - Curia poll which had Labour dropping to 27.1 per cent and National well ahead on 34.9 per cent.
Talbot Mills also does Labour’s internal polling, while Curia Research does National’s internal polling.
The Talbot Mills poll also had Hipkins leading National leader Christopher Luxon in preferred Prime Minister, 34 per cent (up 2) and 24 per cent (up 3) respectively. The Taxpayers’ Union -Curia poll had the pair even on 25 per cent.
In the last 1News Verian poll on July 17, National and Act had enough to form a government but only by one seat.
The latest Newshub Reid Research poll, released at the beginning of the month, also found National and Act could govern together with Labour dropping 3.6 points to 32.3 per cent.
National had been up 1.3 points to 36.6 per cent and Act was up by the same amount to 12.1 per cent.
That gave the two potential coalition partners 47 and 16 seats respectively - together 63 and enough to form a majority in the 120-seat Parliament.
It follows a slew of complaints about Oranga Tamariki.