KEY POINTS:
In bad mouthing the latest batch of opinion polls, the Prime Minister risks looking like someone in serious denial. But it is a risk she obviously feels she has to take.
Helen Clark is usually reluctant to comment on polls as they largely speak for themselves. Moreover, there is nothing to gain politically from trying to put a brave face on bad results.
However, the timing and combined impact of the latest One News-Colmar Brunton, Fairfax and Roy Morgan polls are such bad news for Labour, Clark had to try to undermine their veracity.
All year Labour has waited in vain for the polls to turn and the gap between the two major parties to narrow. There is a rumoured rise in Labour support, albeit a small one, in the latest UMR Insight poll. That poll is not published, however.
With the Budget seeming to have had no impact, the three other published polls instead point to Labour's core support now suffering serious erosion. That is of major worry to the party. Labour's current aim is to start the four-week election campaign competitive enough to still be regarded as a player in post-election negotiations on forming the next Government.
"That is when it gets interesting. That is when you start to see it (the gap) narrow," Clark said yesterday, suggesting the contest would be between "solid" Labour policy and National's "vacuum of ideas".
To be competitive, however, Labour needs to be polling around 35 to 37 per cent when the campaign begins in late September.
However, the One News, Fairfax and Morgan polls have Labour lagging with its support ranging from between 29 to 32 per cent, while National is registering between 52 and 55 per cent backing. The rolling average of the last four published polls has Labour on 31 per cent.
If such figures are sustained - as they have been in the One News and Fairfax polls for the past two months - then Labour will go into the campaign not being regarded as a player. Seeing that, voters might desert that party for other options, particularly minor party ones which might be able to constrain a National-led Government.
That was National's fate in 2002 when its vote collapsed to just 21 per cent and NZ First and United Future were the beneficiaries.
Clark cannot afford a similar perception of Labour to take hold. So she is playing divide and rule with the pollsters - a dangerous game in itself.
She claims the latest polls are "very extreme" and "Labour heartland" is in good shape. She argues the One News and Fairfax polls consistently favour National.
True, both those polls wrongly pointed to National winning the last election by a tidy margin. But there is no way of really knowing for sure. Moreover, Clark made no mention of the Roy Morgan poll actually having Labour narrowly ahead of National prior to election day in 2005.
The most accurate poll of all in 2005 was the 3News-TNS poll. The latest TV3 poll had Labour slipping to 35 per cent last month. The Herald-DigiPoll - the only other major published poll - had Labour at just over 36 per cent last month. That poll pointed to a Labour victory in 2005, but overstated the margin.
Should one or both of those two polls start replicating the results of the other three, Clark will have a real problem maintaining a King Canute-like stance to the trend. For the polls may not all be right. But it defies credibility to argue they are all wrong.
