Latest opinion poll – Labour overtakes National
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2:21 pm, January 17th, 2025 - 62 comments
Categories: act, Chlöe Swarbrick, chris hipkins, Christopher Luxon, greens, labour, maori party, national, nz first, political parties, Politics, polls, winston peters -
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That grinding noise you can hear from the Parliamentary precinct is the sound of National backbenchers sharpening their knives getting ready for a change of leadership.
Because the latest Curia poll shows National has fallen behind Labour in the preferred party stakes. And that the force behind a change of Government is gaining momentum.
From the Herald:
Labour has surpassed National for the first time in nearly two years in the latest Taxpayers’ Union-Curia Poll, with Christopher Luxon’s party dropping into the 20s.
There’s also more bad news for the Government, with the right-wrong direction indicator taking a negative turn.
The results come ahead of the political year ramping up next week. National and Labour will hold their summer caucus retreats, both Luxon and Act’s David Seymour will deliver major speeches, and politicians will attend annual Rātana celebrations.
The poll, which was conducted between January 9 and 13, shows Labour at 30.9%, up 4 percentage points compared to December’s results. National has fallen by 4.6 points to 29.6%. This is the first time since April 2023 that Labour has been ahead of National in this poll.
Act is on 10.8%, down 2.2 points, the Greens are on 9.5%, up 1.2 points, New Zealand First is at 8.1%, up 2.7 points, and Te Pati Māori is on 5.3%, down 0.2.
The results suggest the following seat distribution:
- Labour: 39 (+5)
- National: 38 (-11)
- ACT: 14 (+3)
- Greens: 12 (NC)
- NZ First: 10 (+2)
- Te Pati Maori: 7 (+1)
The Government could hold onto power, just. But National is having its lunch eaten by Act and NZ First and it must have some very nervous backbenchers.
The poll suggests the minor party leaders are increasing their share of support. Chris Hipkins is down 4.6 points to 15.3% in the preferred Prime Minister stakes. Luxon is down 2.6 points to 24.5%, while Seymour is up slightly (0.5) to 6.3%, Winston Peters has jumped 3 points to 8.8% and Chlöe Swarbrick has jumped 4 % to 8.5%.
39% of participants believed the country was heading in the right direction compared to 53% who thought it was going in the wrong direction. This represents a 17 point change.
National will not be pleased. It has never previously been thrown out of office after one term. If this keeps up get ready for the spill.
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Their problem being the alternatives aren’t much better.
Willis?? Bishop?? Anyone else?
My popcorn futures are looking good.
I was just scrolling down to make the same comment.
Personally, and I'm sure it doesn't keep him awake at night, I don't care much for Luxon and I don't think he's made the transition from businessman to politician very successfully.
But I believe the biggest cause of this is voters seeing the two minor parties peeing all over Nationals parade. Unlike Luxon, for example, they can see National being dragged into a treaty debate it says it doesn't support. And heaps of other things.
Plus, probably, those of lesser wealth feeling like turkeys who voted for an early Christmas.
They forget why Key ruled in the 9 years by increment to the right (and did not end WFF tax credits or the interest free loans).
They would have lost in 1993 under MMP, or if New Labour and Labour had not divided.
They only returned in 1996 because NZF divided the opposition and chose to partner with them.
Hubris. Extremism. Pride and a fall. They are exposing who they are, and what their cause is to another generation of voters.
Cracking open a cold one to that this evening
Curia is a discredited polling organisation – last year they were the only polling group that had National up and able to form government.
Looks like this is a quick pivot and helps them build their brand, rather than a poll that matters.
Seems highly unlikely that ACT and NZF have 19% between them?
Given Curia's usual bias, the Right is on the ropes here after only 15 months. The ferries will sink them.
Possibly a "tactical fake result" (my term), designed to panic the Nats into switching leaders now, rather than later?
To play devils advocate…
Keep Chippy in place as Labour leader
Yes, there's always a political angle with David Farrar, by definition. He is both a pollster (main source of income) and an aggressive political activist (main source of political agenda). This is a conflict of interest and he should not be able to do both. In fact, RANZ has adjudicated on this and decided he is not able to do both.
There is nothing not manufactured in the way David Farrar does anything. This will be calculated and your suggestion it's a marketing exercise to get headline attention in the middle of the holidays in the middle of a RW term seems on point.
That said, the economy is in freefall under Luxon and Willis, and people are very, very worried.
Agreed Muttonbird
3% margin of error – with numbers this close they're a bit meaningless – TPU is obviously too cheap to have enough people interviewed for a real poll
Dead Right!
They should have doubled the number of people polled and lowered the MoE to 2.2%, at the least.
The Taxpayers Union responds to the poll.
https://www.taxpayers.org.nz/taxpayer_update_250117?utm_campaign=250117_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_source=taxpayers
From you TPU link,
So they are having a go….
Who would be the TPU pick from ash current Nat caucus?
The Bish
Another thought, is this an offensive, or defensive position by the TPU
You know what they say about defence and offence
"
The results suggest the following seat distribution:
Labour: 39 (+5)
National: 38 (-11)
ACT: 14 (+3)
Greens: 12 (NC)
NZ First: 10 (+2)
Te Pati Maori: 7 (+1)
"
Not quite.
You've omitted to factor in Special Votes. (A commonplace lapse throughout the mainstream media.)
Once Special votes are counted and factored into overall results, National ends up losing TWO seats, re-distributed to Labour and/or Greens and/or Te Pāti Māori.
Based on this poll, and including Special Votes and seat re-distribution, at "best" it's a hung Parliament.
Not all special votes are from those offshore. The impact of not including them in the poll sample might well be 1, not 2 seats.
Indeed, Special Votes aren't necessarily from overseas (Expat NZers). They're also locally driven.
As for seat re-distribution, 2008-2014, inclusive, stripped the Nats of one seat.
2017, 2020, 2023, it's been two. (ref Electoral Commission numbers here: https://frankmacskasy.substack.com/p/the-votes-that-media-dare-not-speak )
Frank M didn't mention offshore, so why have you made it seem like he did?
He mentioned the impact of the totality of special votes.
Yet the domestic component was already included in the poll sample, only the offshore part of the special vote was not.
Most of the adjustment for special votes is driven from offshore.
Is it? I cannot find the relative figures.
Funny, that.
You were sure enough to dispute Frank M’s assessment about the effect of special votes without relative figures.
But now you want them.
That the electoral commission does not provide the info in their official results?
https://electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_2023/statistics/party-sdv-by-electorate.html
Here the claim is that only 10% of those offshore vote.
A million of them, so 100,000 is inferred.
https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/27-09-2023/the-power-and-potential-of-the-overseas-vote-in-election-2023
It seems this was again accurate for 2023.
As per my link, 3rd and 5th columns, offshore=overseas.
Also this:
https://elections.nz/media-and-news/2023/official-results-for-the-2023-general-election/
Yeah one needs to use "statistics" on the site to find such detail.
Knowing that the info is somewhere is often only half the battle. Perhaps AI can assist with such queries but then I’d lose my skills.
And the "media release" – 8.
This from The Spinoff:
"Because there are still the special votes (which include overseas votes, those where the voter enrolled on the day or voted in an electorate different from where they’re enrolled). This year, there are a lot of special votes. In fact, there are 567,000 special votes (or about 20% of the total vote) still to be counted."
Ref: https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/15-10-2023/nz-election-2023-when-will-the-special-votes-be-counted-and-a-government-formed
20%. Quite a chunk.
Little more than 2% came from the offshore vote, so not important in seat allocation.
As I noted, not all specials were offshore. So yeah.
I guessed a 50/50 split, so a 1, not 2 seat effect.
The actual amount was much smaller. Less than one seat in effect, so no difference at all from the poll sample.
So much for your claim that most special votes came from offshore.
You suggested offshore votes not captured in Farrar's swivel-eyed poll were enough to reduce RW seat loss from 2 to 1. Now you are saying they are insignificant.
Make up your mind, ffs.
To state the obvious.
I wrote that citing special votes as per the the poll sample result was only relevant as per the foreign vote component of special votes – so that
a one seat difference at most.
They are in fact less than half the special votes, so even a one seat change would be an over-estimate.
Great, now offshore votes have zero effect (less than one) on seat adjustment.
I think you were trying to be clever taking to task a long time analyst and contributor here on a meaningless stats argument given the meaninglessness of the poll results in question.
He claimed that once
This was untrue, I thought it might be a seat out, in fact it was 2.
You do not want to know how low my opinion of you is, atm.
Go away.
Look at you, champ. Why don't you back up your bravado and write for this site. You seem to have an awful lot time on your hands.
Another fact check.
FYI, FM writes his own blog (side bar) and occasionally for The Daily Blog. Not for this site.
I asked you to go away.
Frank Macskasy used to comment here a lot. Probably driven away.
Not that a blow in would know that.
Anyone can check.
Name a year in which he made more than 24 comments – 2 a month.
He does a bit of long form work on his own site and some onto TDB.
Jesus titty-fucking Christ, I can't believe you are delegitimising Frank Macskasy. No wonder he and Robert Guyton don't bother any more.
You'd better come up with some sterling writing efforts to make up for such smears.
He commented a lot here back in 2012 and 2013.
Occasional since, but more so in 2017 for obvious reasons.
Long form takes up the time.
RG got a ban. Not sure for how long.
FYI, he’s been a long-term commenter here (since 2009) with over 2,000 comments and he’s done about half a dozen Guest Posts here. However, numbers don’t matter so much, quality is more important, IMO. Anyway, it’s irrelevant.
IIRC, RG’s comments were held in Pre-Mod for a while, as things got a little out of hand, and he gave up in the end; I don’t think he ever got an outright ban and he’s not currently in the Black List and thus free to comment here at any time.
The point is that special votes have a crucial role in determining seat allocation in Parliament. Since 2017 they've stripped the Nats of two seats and last year deprived National-Act of an outright majority.
Ref: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/501624/special-votes-national-and-act-lose-majority-in-largest-ever-parliament
And in 2014, National came within ONE SEAT of a historic overall majority – a seat it lost after Specials were counted.
Ref: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/256158/national-loses-majority-after-specials
(That historic majority would not occur for another six years, for Labour.)
If we're going to apply polling results in a meaningful way, 'Specials' have to be taken into account to provide a full picture. Otherwise our interpretation is incomplete.
Most of the specials are local and they are counted in poll samples.
So while specials impact on the GE provisional result, they do not impact on poll samples between elections.
Holy Jesus its one poll pal inhale your bong longer
inhale into and then from.
I prefer the one of December 1.
https://frankmacskasy.substack.com/p/those-polls-and-not-a-hung-parliament
One of the reasons for the apparent voter shift to the right is wealthy establishment lefties forgetting ordinary, socially conscious activism. I think smug, second-home-in-Wanaka whingers fit that demographic very well.
It's a hung parliament anyway, given the poll numbers, with Winston as Kingmaker once again.
2023 electoral results, with "Specials" factored in; https://elections.nz/media-and-news/2023/official-results-for-the-2023-general-election/
Don’t lose sight of the huge number of those who have left in the last year because of the Nat/Act win and decamped to Australia etc and the real possibility of some utu festering away and the only outlet being to cast a vote from afar.
Not much related to this poll but did get a giggle from it, heard someome on radio today say their nickname for the PM is luxative
I'm wondering who the Nats have got that could actually handle Peters and Seymour.
Can't see any obvious candidate.
I think it all depends upon if there are a sufficient number of Nat MPs who care about where their party is heading or whether they will just lie down and wait for Seymour and Peters to implement their wildest fantasies – which is just what many of them secretly want to happen but they never dared to hope – and just let the chips fall where they might.
After all, government is just a game to them, a chance to play with some very big toys.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winning_isn%27t_everything;_it%27s_the_only_thing
Who'd have thought that improving JP services and banning grey hound racing would turn the tide?
Luxon never really cared about being PM. He just dropped into do some admin. No shame in that, I suppose. Why Curia and their client got impatient enough to take the risk of this so-called poll is a mystery. Greed and stupidity is seldom patient, but surely they have a plan no matter how dastardly. They might've got away with it, too, if it wasn't for those pesky journalists using the wrong headline. Now all they've gone and done is excite the voters into thinking there's a BBQ and free beer at Labour's house.