New Zealand First is unchanged on 4 per cent and, without an electorate seat, would not be returned to Parliament.
Translated to an election result, the poll would see National and Act get 61 seats, and Labour and the Greens 59 seats.
New poll shows Act is up by one point to two per cent and, assuming David Seymour kept the Epsom seat, would have two MPs in the next election. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is down two points in the preferred Prime Minister stakes to 36 per cent but she is still well ahead of National leader Simon Bridges on 10 per cent, up one.
National MP Judith Collins is on 4 per cent, down one point, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters down one to 3 per cent and Christopher Luxon, the former Air New Zealand chief and National candidate for Botany has registered on one per cent.
Act's David Seymour has increased his profile this year through opposition to gun law reform and through the passage of the End of Life Choice Act through Parliament.
The poll was conducted between November 23 and 27. National released its hardline law and order policy on November 26.
But the methodology summary says 50 per cent of the poll was conducted on November 24 - which was well before the highly publicised law and order policy.
It was also conducted before the Labour Party conference at the weekend during which Ardern announced a $400 million grant to almost every school in the country for capital expenditure.
The Opportunities Party, the New Conservative Party and the Māori Party each polled one per cent.
Bridges told 1News that his party had ended the year with "momentum – that we know how to get things done".
Seymour said the result was very encouraging.
"Act has taken a series of principled and effective stances on difficult issues and when no one else has been prepared to stand up," he said.
Ardern said she was not worried by the result – despite it being Labour's lowest in two years.
"Every poll that I've seen in recent times has us faring better than we did at the time of the election when we were able to form the Government," she told 1News.
• The poll was of 1006 eligible voters: 504 were polled via landline and 502 via a mobile phone. Undecided were 17 per cent. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 per cent.
