Taxpayers' Union–Curia Poll: Labour passes National for first time in nearly two years, New Zealand on ‘wrong’ track

Labour has surpassed National for the first time in nearly two years in the latest Taxpayers’ Union-Curia Poll, with Christopher Luxon’s party dropping into the 20s.

There’s also more bad news for the Government, with the right-wrong direction indicator taking a negative turn.

The results come ahead of the political year ramping up next week. National and Labour will hold their summer caucus retreats, both Luxon and Act’s David Seymour will deliver major speeches, and politicians will attend annual Rātana celebrations.

The poll, which was conducted between January 9 and 13, shows Labour at 30.9%, up 4 percentage points compared to December’s results. National has fallen by 4.6 points to 29.6%. This is the first time since April 2023 that Labour has been ahead of National in this poll.

Act is on 10.8%, down 2.2 points, the Greens are on 9.5%, up 1.2 points, New Zealand First is at 8.1%, up 2.7 points, and Te Pāti Māori is on 5.3%, down 0.2.

In terms of seats in Parliament, Labour would get 39, the Greens 12, and Te Pāti Māori 7. That’s 58 for the centre-left bloc.

National would get 38, Act would receive 14, and New Zealand First would get 10. For the current governing parties, that’s 62, which would be enough to govern.

While Labour is on the rise in the party vote, its leader Chris Hipkins is down 4.6 points to 15.3% in the preferred Prime Minister stakes.

National’s Luxon is also down 2.6 points to 24.5%, while Seymour is up slightly (0.5) to 6.3%, New Zealand First’s Winston Peters has jumped 3 points to 8.8% and Chlöe Swarbrick is at 8.5% (up 4 points).

The poll also presents an indication of whether the Government is heading in the “right” or “wrong” direction.

It found 39% of participants believed the country was heading in the right direction compared to 53% who thought it was going in the wrong direction. That provides a net right/wrong direction of -14%, which is down 17 points. It’s the first time since April last year that the poll has shown the country is going in the wrong direction.

Cost of living also clearly remains the main issue for voters with 22.3% of people saying it’s their top issue, followed by the economy (17.5%), health (11.6%), Māori or Treaty issues (8%), the environment (5.8%) and education (4.5%).

A National Party spokesperson said: “Polls move around but economic times are tough and the top priority for National this year is unleashing economic growth so all Kiwis can get ahead”.

Hipkins said there would be a lot of poll results this year.

“While this is encouraging, we need to remain focused on the task at hand: holding the Government to account and preparing to campaign in 2026.”

Events since the previous poll include the Government’s announcement about its approach to replacing the Interislander ferries, the release of data showing GDP fell 1% in the September quarter, a number of high-profile pieces of legislation moving through Parliament, and select committee submissions ending on the Treaty Principles Bill.

The poll was conducted by Curia Market Research Ltd for the Taxpayers’ Union.

It is a random poll of 1000 adult New Zealanders and is weighted to the overall adult population. It was conducted by phone (landlines and mobile) and online between Thursday, January 9 and Monday, January 13, 2025. It has a maximum margin of error of +/- 3.1%, and 5.4% were undecided on the party vote question.

Jamie Ensor is a political reporter in the NZ Herald Press Gallery team based at Parliament. He was previously a TV reporter and digital producer in the Newshub Press Gallery office.