NZ Engine

Source: Radio New Zealand

Analysis: For a man who claims little regard for the polls, Winston Peters will surely be feeling more favourably toward their latest offerings.

For the second time in a matter of days, New Zealand First has been delivered a blinder.

The RNZ-Reid Research result – out Tuesday – puts the party in the number three spot and on the cusp of double-digits, its highest score in the series since July 2017.

And more fortune: the lift is also reflected in its leader’s personal standing.

Peters now attracts 12.6 percent support as preferred prime minister, putting him within seven points of Prime Minister Christopher Luxon.

The solid showing follows a similarly eye-catching Taxpayers’ Union-Curia poll last week, which had NZ First on a staggering 12 percent.

Everything seems to be coming up Winston Peters.

More remarkable, the surge is coming despite – or perhaps because of – a general backdrop of pessimism and disenchantment.

While sentiment has nudged up since the gloomy lows of September, it remains entrenched in negative territory.

Only 36.3 percent of voters believe the country is headed in the right direction.

And no wonder why. A convincing majority say they’re finding it harder to cope with the cost of living than a year ago.

A measly 6 percent say life is getting easier. And just 12 percent feel more flush.

Typically, those sort of results would indicate a classic change election, with frustrated voters looking for an alternative to those currently in power.

But no.

Despite the sour mood, the coalition has increased its overall support since the last RNZ-Reid Research poll and retains majority support, even if only just.

And that is largely thanks to NZ First.

Since last election, National and ACT have bled support and now appear to be stagnating. They are bearing the brunt of the blame for the persistent cost-of-living pressures.

If this was the result delivered on 7 November, National would lose eight MPs and ACT two.

NZ First, on the other hand, would grow its caucus from eight MPs to 12.

Despite being just as much a part of the government, NZ First is not receiving the same blame, nor punishment.

Why?

Scrape beneath the surface of the poll results and you can see that NZ First supporters are struggling far more than their National and ACT counterparts.

Six in 10 NZ First supporters say they’re finding the cost of living harder to manage than in January last year. More than half say they’re worse off financially.

Accordingly, they are also markedly more pessimistic about the country’s trajectory, with more saying it is on the wrong track than the right one.

Those voters want a change in direction – but they are not looking to the opposition parties. They are looking to NZ First.

This is new territory for a party with a bruising history in government. In both 1996 and 2017, NZ First saw its support fall away after entering Cabinet.

On each occasion, NZ First was subsequently ejected from Parliament altogether.

This time around seems different. Peters has been successful in differentiating NZ First both from its governing partners and the government as a whole.

That was demonstrated most clearly late last year in Peters’ strident opposition to the India free trade deal, Luxon’s pride and joy.

As well, Peters has come out against National’s flirtation with asset sales and the timeline for its tax cuts, as well as the ACT Party’s Regulatory Standards Act.

He is not shy about criticising his own government’s performance either, openly admitting the coalition had not turned the economy around as quickly as it should have.

Just last week, Peters told reporters the government had not done enough to adequately prepare some communities for extreme weather.

That sort of candour has proved great fodder for the opposition, but it has also reminded voters of Peters’ anti-establishment and populist instincts.

Similar dynamics are playing out abroad with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party surging in the United Kingdom, and Pauline Hanson’s One Nation in Australia.

In both cases, disenchanted voters are searching for inspiration outside the mainstream parties.

Clearly there is an appetite for a more maverick approach, one sceptical of immigration, climate and so-called woke policies.

Peters has long-standing links to Farage and met with a Reform UK board member visiting New Zealand just last week.

“We take lessons from everybody that knows what they’re doing,” Peters told inquiring media. “Mind you, they take lessons from us as well.”

Labour let down by others on the left

It would be wrong to paint NZ First as the sole beneficiary of the general malaise.

Labour has lifted yet again in this poll, its fourth consecutive increase, securing its position as the country’s most popular party.

That’s quite a turnaround for a party trounced at the last election. This result would secure it an extra nine MPs.

Some in government had assumed, or hoped, that Labour’s momentum would stall once it began rolling out policy, but the arrival of its capital gains tax does not appear to have hurt it.

It is Labour’s friends on the left that have let it down.

Both the Green Party and Te Pāti Māori have endured terrible terms.

The Greens initially weathered a series of scandals, but their support now seems to be slipping away and a rapid staff turnover seems to have taken a toll on strategy and focus.

Te Pāti Māori, which had meteoric success early on, has since come crashing down in a blaze of infighting and turmoil.

Soon Labour leader Chris Hipkins will have to make a call about which parties he is prepared to work with in any future government.

Right now, he needs Te Pāti Māori’s numbers, but he will be mulling whether Labour could perhaps swallow them whole and take those votes for itself.

Watch for more results on that question later in the week.

All polls come with a caveat that they are only ever a snapshot of a single moment in time.

Much could yet change over the very long runway Luxon has set by opting for a November election.

His hope is that improving economic forecasts will have come to fruition by then, and that voters will migrate back to National from either Labour or NZ First.

It’s worth noting that the polls are not shifting around dramatically. Every poll from every pollster is telling effectively the same story: a tight race, tipping marginally one way or the other.

That stasis may well represent a lack of engagement, meaning the numbers could shift around as November draws closer and voters start to pay more attention.

In 2023, Labour shed about 10 points between the first Reid Research poll and the eventual election, following a series of ministerial mishaps.

In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic turned the election on its head and saw National plummet a whopping 17 points over the year.

And in 2017, party support lurched wildly as a string of leaders stepped aside – themselves influenced by the polls.

All of that is to say: these may be the starting positions, but there’s plenty of race still to be run.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand