Flank parties swell left as the Nats falter

Colin James says Labour's chances of forming a clear majority Government are looking better all the time.

The campaign looks to have hit a turning point.

Not only did yesterday's New Zealand Herald-DigiPoll survey show a marked shift in favour of the left, but two other polls taken in the same period and published on Thursday night and yesterday morning were in remarkably close agreement.

The graph tells the story. The rise in the right's support stalled around the beginning of the campaign, National's continuing fall in support cancelling out Act's climb. Over the past week, Act has also begun to ease.

The left's long decline also stopped about the beginning of the campaign. The Labour-Alliance bloc has not picked up much since because the Alliance's small rise has been partly offset by sogginess in Labour's support.

Nevertheless, the Labour-Alliance bloc leads the National-Act-United bloc by 45 per cent to 40 per cent.

If just the three most recent polls are taken into account (the fourth, Colmar Brunton, was taken a week before the others), the lead is 7 per cent.

If Labour and the Alliance hold that through to election day, it would probably be enough to give them an outright majority, if the Greens are not in Parliament.

But the Greens do look likely to be in Parliament and when they are added in the left's lead is commanding: 11 per cent on the average of the three most recent polls and 9 per cent on the four-poll rolling average.

Such a lead gives Labour the platform it needs to push for an outright majority on the grounds that polls show it as being in the only bloc seriously capable of getting a majority. Alternatively, it gives National something to work on: on this week's three polls, the Alliance would have 12 seats and the Greens five - enough to give any middling voter contemplating boosting Labour pause for thought at the likely influence of the flank parties.

* The Herald poll of polls is a rolling average of four nationally published polls: the Herald-DigiPoll, Colmar Brunton for TV1, CM Research for TV3 and UMR-Insight for the National Business Review. The reading at any date is the average of the four most recently published polls. This may sometimes contain two editions of a poll because they are taken at different intervals. All four polls are represented in the latest reading.