New 1News-Verian poll: Half of people think Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has lost touch with voters

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon during Question Time in Parliament. Photo / Mark Mitchell

A 1News Verian poll shows just over half of people think Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has lost touch with voters.

The poll of 1000 people found 51% believed he was out of touch, 37% thought he was in touch and 12% did not know or preferred not to say.

Green Party supporters were most likely to say the Prime Minister had lost touch (88%), followed by Labour Party supporters (75%) and New Zealand First supporters (72%), 1News reported.

National Party supporters (71%) and Act Party supporters (63%) were more likely to view Luxon as in touch.

Luxon rejected the idea he’s lost touch with voters, saying he was out and about meeting people most days around the country.

“I understand New Zealanders are doing it incredibly tough at the moment and I’m working hard to make sure I deliver results for them.”

The Prime Minister said he did not believe his own wealth – which has been a hot topic lately – meant he was out of touch.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon speaking with workers during his visit to Easy Build in Upper Hutt. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Earlier this month, Luxon said to Newstalk ZB’s Heather du Plessis Allan “Let’s be clear, I’m wealthy” in response to media attention on the capital gains he made from selling his Wellington apartment.

Luxon also came under pressure for claiming an allowance to live in that apartment despite his wealth.

MPs based outside of Wellington are able to claim up to $52,000 for their accommodation while they need to be at Parliament.

But few Prime Ministers have claimed it, with Luxon being the first in at least 34 years.

Today, Luxon said: “I don’t think that [his wealth] is necessarily linked.”

He said the polls reflected the tough times faced. “But I think when you look at the tough decisions that we’re actually taking and making, I appreciate they’re not popular with everybody but people understand that we’re making the tough decisions for the long-term.”

He said that was starting to pay off with inflation easing and interest rate cuts flowing from that.

Meanwhile, the poll found 54% of voters think Chris Hipkins should stay as Labour leader. 1 News reported that poll respondents were asked: “Do you think Chris Hipkins should now remain as the leader of the Labour Party or step down?”

Labour leader Chris Hipkins. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Just over a quarter believed he should step down and 20% said they didn’t know or preferred not to say.

Hipkins said he believed he had the public support to stay on as Opposition leader, as well as the support of his caucus.

He said he had not lost any sleep about his own dip as preferred Prime Minister in political polling, saying it was to be expected when going into Opposition.

Hipkins had less public profile and the nature of Opposition was to be more negative.

“Our goal over the next two years is to rebuild our support. If you were to look at the polls three years ago, you wouldn’t have picked a National-led Government following the [2020] election, would you?”

The results come days after another 1News Verian poll showed 30% of people think the country is in better shape than on election day a year ago, while 40% think it is in worse shape and 26% think little has changed.

Meanwhile, a separate Taxpayers’ Union-Curia poll released on October 11 had Luxon down five percentage points to 27.7% in the preferred PM rankings while Hipkins jumped 4.3 points to 16.9%.

That poll for October showed National support dropping 4.1 percentage points to 34.9% – its lowest result in 15 months from the polling outfit.

Labour’s 30.3% result was up 3.6 points on the last poll in September.

The Green Party dropped slightly, 0.6 points, to 10.4%. Act was up almost one point to 9.7%. New Zealand First had a similar increase to 7.6% while Te Pāti Māori fell two points to 3%.

Julia Gabel is a Wellington-based political reporter. She joined the Herald in 2020 and has most recently focused on data journalism.