A third poll shows New Zealand First with enough support to return to Parliament, again proving the golden rule of politics: never rule out Winnie.
The Taxpayers' Union – Curia poll released on Thursday is the third consecutive poll showing Winston Peters’ party with enough support to clear the 5% threshold.
It came after the inaugural Guardian – Essential poll had NZ First at 5.3% on Wednesday, and a Roy Morgan poll put him right on the 5% threshold earlier this month.
Both these polls could be considered to be lower-quality, but the Curia poll was conducted by industry veteran and National Party pollster David Farrar.
It shows NZ First comfortably clearing the hurdle, with 5.8% of the vote.
This would give the party seven seats in Parliament, but still allow National and Act to form a coalition government without their support.
Winston Peters’ party has held the balance of power in three separate elections and supported both Labour and National governments.
This time around, he has ruled out working with Labour and has courted voters who opposed Jacinda Ardern’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, this does not mean he will be welcomed into the centre-right coalition.
National Party leader Christopher Luxon has so far declined to rule out working with New Zealand First, but his probable coalition partner the Act Party has already done it for him.
David Seymour, Act Party leader, has ruled out working with New Zealand First if it were given ministerial Cabinet positions.
However, it does leave room for either party to sit on the cross benches and provide confidence and supply to National and whichever coalition partner it chooses.
Labour currently holds a majority in Parliament and governs alone, but it has a cooperation agreement with the Greens providing extra votes in exchange for ministerial positions outside of cabinet.
A National-Act coalition could reach a similar agreement with New Zealand First, or shut the party out entirely if it had enough votes.
It’s unlikely—but not impossible—that National and NZ First would have enough votes between them to form a Government without the support of Act.
Finally, Peters has been known to be flexible with his language and the possibility of NZ First supporting a third term Labour government could not be completely ruled out.
Labour pains
The Taxpayers' Union – Curia Poll does not show that as a possible outcome in this particular snapshot in time, as Labour has fallen sharply in recent polls.
Curia showed them down 4 points at just 27% support, while Guardian’s Essential poll had them at 29%, and Roy Morgan at just 26%.
Different polls cannot always be compared to each other, as they may use different methodologies, however the trend appears to show support for Labour ebbing.
The Green Party would generally be the biggest beneficiary in any lost support for Labour, and that was the case in the Taxpayers' Union – Curia Poll.
It picked up three of four points Labour lost, while National only gained 1.6 points, leaving the balance between the coalition blocs relatively unchanged.
National and Act would be able to scrape together a government with 61 seats, or 68 if it was supported by NZ First, while the left-leaning bloc could only gather 52 seats.
Labour would be unable to form a government even if a change of heart from Peters delivered support from his party’s seven seats.
However, those seats are just calculated from one single poll and are not predictive of what will happen on election night.
The campaign begins in earnest in three weeks time and both blocs will be working hard to win over the public.
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