National and Act in government on latest poll

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern would lose power on this poll. Photos / Mark Mitchell

The latest Taxpayers’ Union-Curia Poll has National extend its lead over Labour, rising one point on last month’s poll to 39 per cent, while Labour fell two points to 33 per cent.

Those results are the equal highest for National and the equal lowest for Labour since the poll began in April last year.

The Act Party was steady on 10 per cent and the Green were steady on 8 per cent.

Te Pāti Māori and NZ First were on 3.5 per cent and 2.9 per cent respectively.

Those numbers would give National 51 seats and Act 13 - enough to form a Government.

Labour would lose 22 seats, falling to 42 while the Greens would have 10. Te Pāti Māori would get 4 seats provided it won an electorate seat.

Christopher Luxon has also closed the favourability gap with Jacinda Ardern.

Ardern’s net favourability fell to 3 per cent, down from 8 per cent - a record low for her in the poll. Luxon is both less liked and less disliked than Ardern. He rose five points for a net favourability of 2 per cent.

The pollster warned that despite the two leaders’ favourability narrowing, undecided voters still clearly preferred Ardern.

Undecided voters gave Ardern a positive net favourability of 1, compared with Luxon who was on negative 29 per cent.

Luxon also enjoyed a jump in the preferred prime minister poll, rising 5.2 per cent to 26.3 per cent, however Ardern maintained a strong lead at 35.3 per cent, down just 0.3 per cent.

The poll was taken between Thursday and Tuesday, December 1-6. The sample size was 1000 eligible New Zealand voters: 600 by phone and 400 by online panel.

The maximum sampling error (for a result of 50 per cent) is +/- 3.1 per cent, at the 95 per cent confidence level.

The poll tracks closely with a Newshub-Reid Research and a 1 News-Kantar Pol in recent weeks.

National was on 38 per cent, up 1 point, Labour was on 33 per cent, down 1 point. Act was on 11 per cent, up 2 points and the Green Party was steady on 9.

Luxon told TVNZ the result showed people wanted a “Government that gets things done”.

Speaking on that earlier poll Ardern said: ”We are as a country going through some very particular issues that rightly and understandably are of interest to voters”.

The Newshub-Reid Research Poll from November had Labour at 32.3 per cent, and National on 40.7 per cent. Act was on 10 per cent and the Greens were on 9.5 per cent.