The final polls in the last week of the campaign show the left and right blocs on an equal footing, with NZ First holding the balance of power between them.
Winston Peters, the party’s veteran leader, has ruled out returning Labour to power which limits his status as ‘kingmaker’ but he can expect a phone call from Christopher Luxon.
The National leader's declaration that he would work with Peters, if necessary, has sent voters spinning out of its preferred coalition partner and into its “last resort” partner.
Act was polling at an average of 13% a couple of months ago, but it has lost a couple of percentage points to NZ First which is now polling above 6%.
National has also lost some support, although this may have been to the Labour Party which has mounted a mini-comeback in the final days of the campaign.
A record level of support for the Green Party means the left and right blocs are on track to each win 56 seats, according to the last three polls, while NZ First takes the last eight.
Interest.co.nz’s polling average, which factors in older polls results, still shows National and Act winning more seats than Labour, Greens, and Te Pāti Māori — but the gap is shrinking.
Were Labour leader Chris Hipkins and Peters to both go back on their word, and betray their voters, they could theoretically form a government together.
This would be a scandal but could be a credible enough threat to give NZ First a little extra leverage at the negotiating table.
Law of averages
The polls which show the left and right with equal support are the two television news polls and the Guardian Essential poll.
Interest.co.nz’s polling average shows National and Act on track to win roughly 59 seats between them, but that has been trending down in the past two weeks.
Their seat count drops to just 56 if you zoom in on only the most recent poll results, equal with the left. In all cases, NZ First more than makes up the difference.
The Act Party remains the fourth most popular party in these averages and would win between 10 and 13 seats, while NZ First could pick up seven to nine.
Labour would beat its (disastrous) 2014 result and get upwards of 35 seats, while the Green Party would have its best result in history with up to 17 seats.
We have issues
Polling firm Ipsos updated its monthly New Zealand Issues Monitor on Tuesday. It tracks what voters are most concerned about and which political parties would be best at handling them.
Inflation/the-cost-of-living remains the top problem for voters, a title it has held since early 2022 when it overtook housing — which has fallen to third place.
Concern about crime has also moved above housing this year, and still holds second place, but it has receded in the past month. Healthcare and the economy round out the top five.
The big movement in the newest Monitor was an increase in concern about fuel prices, which tends to happen when 91 hits $3 at the pump, and a fall in worry about education.
Oil prices climbed in September as members of the cartel OPEC cut production while China kept importing relatively high volumes despite an economic slowdown.
Prices have since eased but the sudden flare-up in Israel and Palestine has caused some uncertainty which could keep upwards pressure on oil costs.
Household budgets are already being strained by higher mortgage rates and consumers are not pleased to see $3 petrol prices at the pump.
Short-term worries about petrol prices have risen to meet concern about climate change, both at 21%, in the most recent Issues Monitor.
However, climate change beats petrol prices as a long term concern, at 25% versus 14% on a five-year horizon. Worryingly, inflation remains on top of the long term list of concerns.
National was perceived as being the party best equipped to tackle eight of the top ten concerns, with only climate change and poverty going to the Greens and Labour, respectively.
Ipsos interviewed 1,148 respondents in August via online panels and the numbers have a 3.5% margin of error.
101 Comments
Of course. Anyone who hasn't drunk the misinformation koolaid can see reinstating interest deductibility is a no-brainer. It's a stupid policy that has the net effect of increasing rents and decreasing investment flows into housing. Great policy if you've got too many houses. Oh wait. We have the opposite problem.
Also is just plain wrong from an accounting standpoint. Anyway...
Lol anyone with the ability to think critically and look at the bigger picture would see that negative gearing of houses is a stupid policy, and that buying and selling houses to each other at ever higher prices is not very intelligent.
As a former accountant it was easy to see what the longer term and wider consequences would be.
Correct, removing interest tax deductibility on rental housing is not only bad policy, its having perverse effects on the cost of renting. For example, Auckland rents have increased by 12 percent on average last year, trademe figures. Its only going to get a lot worse as the full non deductibilty wont kick in for another 2 years (under labour policy). They tried a similar idea in Australia once and rents shot up 30% before they binned it. Crazy stupid idea.
Will NZF make a difference though? I highly doubt it. They're just as much in it for themselves as the rest, snouts in the trough feeding from the same gravy train.
Will they really stop Nationals tax policies or do they also benefit? If National need to form a coalition to govern, and are unable to implement their tax policy, what then are the consequences?
https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/national/hundreds-of-landlords-to-become…
However the governing relationship became tense as the election loomed, with Labour figures and others unhappy at the 'handbrake' effect of NZ First ruling out policies
he stopped the wasteful spending on the stupid light rail to the airport, lucky this term labour were so useless they could not even start it
he will do the same to national, if it is stupid and costs too much for the country he will say NO, and he still has his no sign
I don’t understand the logic behind your claim National will sell our houses to foreign buyers.
1. Immigration is at record highs under Labour
2. foreigners are able to buy houses now. National is proposing to tax them. Surely this is a disincentive for them to buy?
Obviously the issue is deeper than any political party is able to resolve, especially if they're just as ignorant and self interested as their voters.
It could be that economics, monetary policy, people's fears/greed are the real cause.
There has been no increase in the value of housing only an increase in prices and a decrease in the value of tokens we exchange. If you need more tokens and more debt creation the problem is the system. One might start to question why do we do it this way?
I'm happy to pay for quality public services. I'm not happy to pay for the state to piss my money up the wall though! Personally I tend to swing from left to right based on what's on offer.
GST of fruit and veges = tax cut for the supermarkets and not for me. Disgusting
Wealth tax = make NZ wealth more equally distributed, but make the country overall poorer. Disgusting
I see better value for taxpayer $$ spent on the right this time, and a lot less likely to tear the country apart.
It is pretty sad that our options are so shit that we need a handbrake. Somehow he is the least worst option between them all. ACT has Liz Truss level policies that’ll take us down the same path as the UK, National offers nothing to most people unless you’re a property investor, labour has achieved nothing with their mandate. With those options on offer and you can’t see why people are voting for NZ first you’re blind.
The same outfit keeps saying the Voice referendum is going to be close, and they have been saying so for months. Fact it is it getting crushed, and even indigenous Australians are hard against it. Their polling is highly suspect....or maybe this is a dead cat bounce for Labour.
Who knows, polling seems to have a lot of noise ... I only ever bother looking too closely at the general trend.
I don't see what it matters at this point anyway - barring some major development (or the polls all being totally wrong by a serious order of magnitude) Winston gets to decide the next government.
Looks like the educated realise TOP have a reasonable plan for more stable house prices, and henceforth hope for the future of our youth to stay in NZ. They may not get the numbers of NZF but if anything, this election should be a catalyst for them to capitalise on next election with the momentum and coverage. Hopefully they get some higher donations to help them along the way.
Interesting figures but all it shows me is the very poor general representation here compared to larger polls which is a worry really. Turns out that interest.co.nz is not a balanced place to discuss anything. Just a couple of days left before the real numbers come in.
interest.co.nz is not a balanced place to discuss anything
I'd have to disagree. While some will stick to preformed ideas, most I find here are open to evidence-based reasoning, as well as being open to changing their perspectives through educated discussion. After all, education is the most valuable asset you'll ever own.
Or you have a bias....
Against what ? Oh yeah mathematics. Maths isn't real because it makes all your arguments look like nonsense. I get it. Will you be emerging from your cave-dwelling to find a fringe party promoting de-population and rationing in the next few days, or just continue to browse irrelevant rubbish on the internet that you think is real ?
Last time the Roy Morgan was the most accurate come election night. They must be due to announce another any day now however in the past they have also been a bit of a maverick. So too may well be this Guardian poll but there are too indicators that resonate. The lacklustre campaign by National and the inexplicable lapses by ACT are hardly imaginary and this might have boosted Labour slightly but more likely the Greens. . However the election pacesetter is undoubtedly WP/NZF and when they have actually been in contention in the past, they have invariably bounced up even a bit more in the final count.
Agreed,
I think NZ First could potentially do 10% on election night, as now that they are clearly in the running voters who might have gone to ACT (for opposition to co-governance) but who aren't in favour of ACT's more socially liberal or extreme economic policies can go back to their natural home.
Polling firm Ipsos updated its monthly New Zealand Issues Monitor on Tuesday
Seems to be one of the better trackers we have for public sentiment on contemporary issues. But rarely seems to be referred to by media and / or govt. Wonder why that is. Not on a preferred supplier list in the game of mates.
It did track Princess Xindy's gradual demise and increasing concern around key issues like cost of living and crime quite accurately. Easy to say that had something to do with the tracker's lack of popularity. However, even when Xindy was wildly popular, it still wasn't used.
With a margin of error +/- 3% the polls are near useless for picking up small movements. The variation exceeds voters fickleness. Bite the bullet, poll 5,000 and get something providing more granular results. Lies, lies and dam statistics.
A MoE of +/-3% is more than acceptable for polling. It is what we call 'directional' data. A sample size of 5,000 is ridiculous for a number of reasons. A more appropriate sample size is 1000.
Can you expand? I get the concept of ‘directional data’ but with a 3% margin, then the overlap in results gives no clear sense of likely outcome. If you wanted to predict a result surely a greater sample size would be better. Note, I am exposed daily to concepts like p-values, confidence intervals, non-inferiority margins type 1/2 errors. Feel free to use jargon to help with the description.
Assuming a population size of 5,000,000 with a 3% MoE with a 95% CI, a recommended minimum sample would be 1067.
Increasing the sample to 5,000 would give you an MoE of 1.39%, So for the effort involved in collecting data across 5,000 vs 1,000, the reduction in error is not great.
Clear. But you’d be nearly 2.5x more likely to have a ‘real’ result. For example if you owned the ‘TAB’ and were betting on the outcomes would you be better commissioning your own private research and not releasing? Rhetorical as I don’t know the ROI.
Appreciate the response.
I think political polls should be banned within one month of either a general election or a by-election.
They can be voter-influential in themselves and certainly can be used as a fear factor by some. Look at the fuss created since they indicated NZ First could be a coalition power broker once again and, if you believe the explanation out of 2020, how they may have influenced the absolute majority swing to Labour born out of a fear that an Ardern government might be overly influenced by the Greens should they have held the balance of power.
the trouble with FPP is that in the past the party that was elected got less votes than the opposition which favoured national as they gained all the country seats which had a smaller population base.
it also lead to some outcomes that the majority of the country did not want or vote for i.e nationals thing big or labours selling everything that was not nailed down and GST
The impetus to change from FPP to MMP was largely due to the excessive disproportionality FPP elections are prone to. Prominent examples of this include the 1966[7] election, in which the Social Credit Party gained 9% of the vote and yet won only a single seat. Furthermore, this disproportionality often lead to the successful party winning less overall votes than the opposition, but gaining more seats. An example of this is the 1978 election, in which the Labour Party won more than 10,000 votes (0.6%) more than the National Party but gained 11 fewer seats in Parliament.[8
On this latest chart, National & ACT have 36.2% + 9.9% = 46.1%
Voter apathy for Labour & wet weather on Saturday will likely lead to a low turnout. Voters on the right are motivated to vote.
Overseas votes could be a significant influence with a net 40,000 kiwis having left NZ in last year & many others who have not forgotten about being locked out from returning to NZ during Covid.
National will almost certainly get the extra seat at the by-election.
How accurate are the polls?
Will the final result be a significant shift of say 10% to the right due to voter apathy, wet weather, overseas voting, & inaccurate polling?
Will the shift be enough to get National & ACT over 50%? Eg 46.1% + say 4% = 50.1%
Will the extra seat be a deciding factor?
The poll results released in last couple of days suggest it is probably too close to call whether National & ACT can do it alone. If they can’t NZ First will join them to form the next government.
Either way Labour will be out.
It is ironical that the media has promoted the Winston story but if he gets in, he said he wants an inquiry to be held into why the public has lost faith in the media. Note approx 90% of journalists lean left according to a recent survey by Massey University.
If the media had not given Winston so much coverage, he would not be back in contention. Media should be relatively impartial as they can be very influential on voting outcomes.
The way media has conducted itself in this election needs to be investigated & is the reason is why a full inquiry is now required.
they did but then their people got a lot more airtime so people got to see and hear them and the amount of people i have heard that say they don't like luxon he comes across as slippy or that david seymour seems nasty. they are dam lucky that chippy got covid imagine how worse it could have been.
i would suggest with a different leader national would have almost been able to govern on their own and i can see both leaders not being in charge of their parties next election
Herein lies the issue, people voting on personalities. Nothing is stopping National from booting him out of the spotlight after the election, hence the person at the helm means absolutely nothing, after all we don;t have a president therefore there are limitations to the authority of the prime minister. It's like voting for the car you wish to drive in at a crossroads, instead of voting for the direction you want it to go. Forget the person in charge, and vote on policy alone, onlyy then will NZ see what the people truly want.
I think the policies are part of the problem as well. All National had to do was give people something to vote for, yet all they can offer is a pretty basic indexation that should of been done years ago, which should actually be happening every year rather than a cynical one off “tax cut”. And I actually agree that interest deductibility is slightly too high, but I think setting it at 50% or 25% rather than throwing it out altogether would have won them a lot more support. Instead your average person gets 5/10ths of f*ck all and property investors stand to gain tens of thousands of dollars which in this environment is a bit of kick in the dick.
Then they go and headline with a foreign buyer ban as their headline revenue generating policy. Like what the hell were they thinking read the room christ.
I still think they’ll win but it should have be a landslide, now it’s shaping out to be stunningly close (if the polls are correct but who knows).
I think the policies are part of the problem as well.
Agreed here, I found ACT to have shifted too far along the spectrum in the last 3 months, prior they weren't looking too bad but the immigration policy seemed to be the start of the eccentric policies. National too too long to get a head of steam then came out with everything at once and it won't help the wealth divide that has grown exponentially since 2020 IMO, Greens have idealistic policy but have not the prudence to display a solid plan of how they will enact their policies which undermines their credibility (history not on their side), NZF are smart but we are creatures off habit and I can't see Winston fulfilling half of what he promises, nor sticking to his word after enabling Labour 2 elections prior, yet TOP seem to have a sound plan for shifting focus of investment to productive areas, keeping house prices stable and providing a foundation for younger generations to have a better society in NZ. Sadly my hunch is that the largest and most engaged voting population will, for a large part, vote for their needs giving National their vote to keep the housing reliance strong. I pray I'm proven wrong and we have some more diversity in parliament. Lord knows NZ is a different place than it was 20years ago, it would be good to see a parliament representive of this.
In the debate tonight he sounded like a CEO reporting to the board. I don't think that transfers over to politics, and doesn't appeal to the average voter.
He has done a good job of making himself more likeable, but the focus on that has been at the cost of better policy explanation.
At this stage (now that early voting is open) public polls only exist to manipulate the electorate and earn revenue for mainstream media companies. It's actually an affront to democracy, and an insult to voters' intelligence, especially as many people have already voted. Don't fall for it. IMO people should vote for whoever you want to be in Parliament, and shouldnt change their mind simply based on yesterday's poll numbers.
Agreed. Never seen so much MSM manipulation as this time around, its not just the polls its the 6 O'clock news and the kind of remarks for journalists who should be reporting the news not trying to fabricate the news. I though billboards should have been down by now and polls really should have stopped the second any voting started.
public polls after voting opens i would suggest do influence voting patterns and i would also suggest that is also a biproduct of MMP as people will vote now in a way to strengthen or weaken one of the major parties to make sure certain policies do not happen, ala last election where i know of a lot of people voted labour to keep the greens and capital gains tax out
To suggest that Winston would go back on his word is mischievous and is only aired to take votes away from NZ First, presumably by National supporters.
Luxon must really hate the prospect that he will have to honour the present way supper increases are calculated and that he will loose his age increase for National Super entitlement- Which is 20% of the average wage and very low by western standards.
No NZ First is needed to route out Nationals tricks and to temper ACT's enthusiasm for harsh cuts.
Party Vote NZ First please bother for you and I.
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