KEY POINTS:
Support for the Government's high profile free trade agreement with China is increasing, with a Herald -DigiPoll survey showing some people have moved from having no firm view on the deal to backing it since more details emerged.
The poll puts support for the Chinese deal at 49.1 per cent, up 4.4 per cent from when the same survey question was asked in March.
And, in an interesting twist, the deal is backed most strongly by Labour voters.
Among those who said they would put their party vote with Labour at this year's election, 57.3 per cent said they supported the Chinese trade deal.
That is higher than the 46 per cent of National voters who said they backed it.
The agreement was signed in a lavish ceremony at Beijing earlier this month, although controversy about a Chinese crackdown on dissent in Tibet took some of the gloss off the event back in New Zealand.
Since it was signed there has been support from much of the local business community for the tariff reductions contained within the agreement.
But Fisher and Paykel Appliances' decision to move more of its manufacturing operations overseas - and its fingering of the trade deal as one contributing factor - have threatened to turn public opinion against the agreement.
The DigiPoll shows that the level of opposition to the agreement is relatively static overall at 32.7 per cent compared with a month ago, with just a quarter of Labour voters fitting into this category.
Among the National voters, 36.4 per cent said they didn't back the agreement.
The level of people who said they didn't know has dropped overall from 22.9 per cent to 18.1 per cent.
Trade Minister Phil Goff yesterday said the poll showed opinion was moving "in the right direction" and he was confident support for the trade deal would increase over time.
"People are naturally cautious," Mr Goff said.
"As time goes on, I think more people will understand that the threat was already there, that low cost countries were already exporting into New Zealand in areas of mass production, but the opportunity has opened up because New Zealand now gets to play on a level playing field."
A select committee is accepting public submissions on the Chinese trade deal until May 7, and after that it will hear some oral submissions before reporting back to Parliament.
Parties will later vote on legislation that enables the measures of the agreement to come into force.
Both Labour and National are set to vote for it.
