Pollwatch: Colmar Brunton 28/5/2018

Written By: - Date published: 7:38 pm, May 28th, 2018 - 59 comments
Categories: act, conservative party, greens, labour, maori party, national, nz first, polls - Tags: , , ,

It’s poll night for the second night in a row, so I’ll keep this one a bit more brief.

A chart of the expected outcome from this poll. Greens: 6, Labour: 55, National: 58, ACT: 1.

Click for a dynamic version.

TVNZ appears to have just lost the race for the first post-budget poll, but has given us a much different picture of what’s going on in their poll, despite having basically the same numbers for Labour, National, and the Greens as Reid Research did.

On first blush, this is another poll telling the same story as the last one: Even though NZF is at risk of being under threshold at 4-and-change-percent, Labour and the Greens can hang on and be a government on their own. As expected, NZ First’s result is a little volatile between the two polls, but is still hanging out in danger territory. Reid Research was the poll that got NZ First’s numbers roughly correct before the election, but I’ve generally found it best to assume whoever has them polling highest is correct, so I would point out briefly that this is not actually a guaranteed bump below the threshold yet. If you want to make assumptions about demographics, CB polls cellphones as well as landlines now, RR polls the internet for a quarter of its survey.

Things are a little more complicated than that once we start running the numbers on what sort of government is LIKELY, however, and most of that is simply down to the fact that the Greens are polling a little less than 1% lower this time.

A pie graph of likely government scenarios. Labour governs alone: 0.5%, Labour-green Govt: 45.7%, NZF coalition govt: 1.4%, Hung Parliament: 8.4%, National-ACT govt: 44.1%

So, looking at that graph on the left may be a little terrifying, but let’s analyze it a bit. These simulations represent the Greens being under-threshold 48.3% of the time, which I personally think accounting for the previous polls is an absolutely unrealistic assumption, and should be dismissed out of hand. (any party that’s consistently polling at 5% or above has never fallen below threshold under MMP) If you agree with me, you can basically ignore all chance of a National-ACT government here, and halve the chance of a hung parliament.

If not, there’s still a total 47.6% chance of some form of Labour-led government.

NZF is barely hanging on here, and you get to see Excel’s inconsistent rounding as it gives me a 98.7% chance of them being under threshold, but a 1.4% chance of being in a coalition government of some sort. (some of that 1.4% may include scenarios where the Greens are out but NZF are in, I haven’t bothered to seperate out those two scenarios because at this stage I think that’s unrealistic)

Also worth noting is that the Māori party is hanging in there with their party vote, still doing better than ACT, as they’re on 0.9% and 0.7% respectively.

There was some speculation about the Conservative Party on TVNZ- as such I ran some extra simulations, and assuming they have all the leftover vote of 1.2%, (which is being incredibly overly generous, TVNZ would have mentioned if they were coming in fifth) they would get to form a government with National about 20% of the time if they won an electorate, and could tip the balance to National’s favour about 10% of the time once you account for this poll over-estimating the Greens chances of falling under threshold- if they retained ACT at the same time. The graph to your right had a 51.9% incidence of the Greens under threshold, and a 97.7% chance of NZF there, again showing that even with new Conservative buddies, National would still be relying on gaming the threshold to knock out Labour’s coalition partners, as every single scenario with NZF in Parliament resulted in a Labour-led government.

For those of you following the Preferred PM drama, this poll paints a much different picture, with Collins flat to last month at 2%, and Bridges gaining two points at 12%. (Ardern’s at about 41% on this poll, absolutely crushing it with most Labour voters onside) This is better for Bridges than Reid Research’s preferred PM, but it’s not exactly good either. Bridges will probably be glad preferred PM is such a bunch of rubbish though, as robust polling on his approval would not be coming out well for him right now.

So, overall: A close poll if you rate the chance of the Greens falling under threshold, or a good one for the government if you don’t, but at the least things coming this close should probably have the government rethinking its political strategy to some degree- either to hold onto New Zealand First, or to simply increase the left vote directly so it doesn’t matter whether they do or not. The budget appears to have met expectations, but not really gained a bump for Labour- this is understandable as they front-footed a lot of their priorities into their 100-day plan, so Labour will need to keep delivering the goods if it wants a boost to be sure National is out of striking distance.

59 comments on “Pollwatch: Colmar Brunton 28/5/2018 ”

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  1. Enough is Enough 1
    28 May 2018 at 7:40 pm

    Brilliant analysis Matthew

  2. One Anonymous Bloke 2
    28 May 2018 at 8:05 pm

    Implement the findings of the Royal Commission. I don’t doubt that the Greens can get over 5%, I just want to hear the whinging right wing scum, whinging.

    • Matthew Whitehead 2.1
      28 May 2018 at 8:22 pm

      You mean the MMP Review’s recommendations?
      http://www.elections.org.nz/events/past-events-0/2012-mmp-review/results-mmp-review

      Those were:

      • Winning an electorate should no longer allow under-threshold parties to qualify for list seats.
      • If the above is implemented, overhang seats should be removed, fixing the size of parliament at 120.
      • The threshold should be lowered to 4% and reviewed after the fact to consider if this is working, with a report to the MoJ no later than three general elections after the change is implemented.
      • We should give strong consideration to limiting electorate seats to no more than 72. (a 60:40 ratio of electorate to list seats)
      • Parties should give statutory declarations that their rules have been followed in selection, and in any disputes the rules lodged with the Electoral Commission shall be enforced, but there should be no change to the ability of parties to manage their own selection processes.
      • There should be no change to the ability to stand for both the Party List and electorates, nor to the ability of List MPs to contest by-elections.

      Honestly, I think it’s a mixed bag. 4% is much too high of a threshold but at least it’s comparatively better to now, and three elections before the mandatory review kicks in is far too long, but the EC tends to be a bit conservative about electoral reform. But it comes with the cost of electorate parties not being able to bring list MPs with, which would mean in the future we can’t have people like Marama Fox come into Parliament, and that there will essentially be a 4%-or-bust consequence to campaigning for the Party Vote that makes it very, very difficult to start a new party without campaigning for electorates instead.

      I also think 60:40 is far too many electorate seats and risks proportionality under extreme scenarios, (e.g.: Labour or National poll at 25% in a general election) and that we should instead be shooting for 50:50 and reviewing whether to increase the size of Parliament again if we want a number like 72 electorates.

      I also profoundly disagree with the idea of nixing overhang seats altogether- while I don’t like that Parliament is effectively sized dynamically, I also like the effect of potentially removing a list seat from Parliament even less, as it makes it much harder to predict what Parliament will look like and for it to maintain proportionality, simultaneously making the political system more arcane and less representative of NZ. What I would do instead is limit the number of overhang seats allowed, to some fraction of the size of Parliament- say 4% rounded to the nearest seat, which would give you 5 maximum with 120 default seats. Once we go over that 5 in terms of electorates that don’t have list entitlements, then we start removing list seats, basically limiting that measure until we reach extreme scenarios- we’ve never had more than 5 overhang seats to date.

      • alwyn 2.1.1
        28 May 2018 at 8:47 pm

        Your last paragraph doesn’t make any sense at all.
        You appear to be interpreting what an “overhang” seat is and how many there are quite wrongly.
        An overhang seat is an Electorate seat that is won by a party whose electorate seats won exceed the number of seats that they would be entitled to by their party vote.
        It is not, as you seem to be saying, a list seat that they get because they won an electorate seat but which they would not have got if they hadn’t won an electorate because they were under 5%. That is a quite different debate.

        The only overhang seat in the last Parliament was Peter Dunnes. There were no others. There is no way to get rid of overhang seats without telling an electorate that they cannot have the MP they voted for.
        The only overhang seat in the 2011 election was in the Maori Party. They won 3 electorates although their party vote would only allow for 2 MPs. Again the only way to get rid of the overhang would have been to refuse to accept the public vote for one of those 3 MPs.

        The extra Maori party seat was not an overhang in 2014. They won an electorate and they had enough votes to earn 2 MPs. The second was not an overhang and did not increase the size of Parliament above 120.

        • Matthew Whitehead 2.1.1.1
          28 May 2018 at 9:07 pm

          Yes, I am aware of what an overhang seat is. You are conflating two different things I’m talking about there. Let’s start with overhangs.

          There are two options when you have an electorate winner who doesn’t have a List seat under an MMP system if you want to guarantee that every electorate winner gets a seat- you can either add an extra overhang seat, or remove a list seat from Parliament to seat that MP. Right now, we have an odd hybrid where we do overhang seats for parties, but remove a list seat for independents. (I think this was done in case there was a glut of “independent” MPs to try and game the system)

          The EC wants to change that to simply removing a list seat all of the time. It’s much more difficult to calculate what Parliament will look like, and who the “loser” from that is, than it is to speculate on what happens if you add an overhang seat.

          What I would prefer is that we seat all winners without a list seat entitlement in our quota of five (or however many) overhang seats first, but if we have a large glut of overhang winners, then we start removing list seats. This makes small attempts to win extra seats viable and less disruptive of proportionality in Parliament, but large attempts will start removing list seats, “punishing” potential electoral allies. The EC’s solution basically makes it not worth National’s time to throw Epsom to ACT, which would have very interesting consequences, but it also means if ACT win it anyway, we have no way of knowing who “loses” that last list seat without knowing the exact balance of party votes in advance.

          The other, separate issue, is that the EC wants to remove the “lifeboat” provision. This is why I was referencing Marama Fox- she was an MP allowed into parliament because winning an electorate seat allows a party to ignore the threshold. This seems like a fair compromize to me, and I think we should continue to allow it. There was no particularly good justification for this decision from the EC, and it seems to be driven by ideological submissions more than a genuine motivation for a healthier democracy, which requires the ability for smaller parties to both grow and shrink depending on their performance. Right now, shrinking is easy in most cases, (with the exception of parties with a safe electorate like ACT) but growing seems to be unreasonably difficult. (Look at what happened to TOP- I’m not a fan, but they deserved to be in Parliament this term)

          • alwyn 2.1.1.1.1
            28 May 2018 at 9:21 pm

            I had read you comments as all being about Overhang seats. I will have a look at what you said in more detail tomorrow. I don’t have any more time tonight.
            By the way we didn’t choose to have 71 (not 72) electorate seats. We chose instead to have no less than 16 general seats in the South Island. The reason the number of seats continues to increase is simply that the North Island population grows much faster than the South and to keep the electorates the same size (population) we need to keep increasing the number of North Island seats. Would you remove the minimum on SI electorates?
            They will probably increase the number of electorate seats when, or if, we ever manage to get any reliable population numbers from the Census.

            • Matthew Whitehead 2.1.1.1.1.1
              28 May 2018 at 9:42 pm

              So this is a third thing I was talking about in that post, just to be clear- this problem is that essentially the North Island’s population is growing much faster than the south island, but we have a guaranteed quota of sixteen seats for them in the written part of our constitution, meaning that the North Island regularly gets extra electorates popping up to match their size to the South Island’s electorates, but we aren’t increasing the number of List Seats in Parliament to compensate and keep the ratio between the two under control. If you want in depth thoughts on this, I blogged about it on my old blog here: https://lemattjuste.wordpress.com/2016/11/27/the-south-island-quota-and-why-its-a-problem/

              The EC’s recommendation is that we consider changing the law such that electorates compose a maximum of 60% of seats, (that’s where the number 72 came from, it’s 60% of 120) and that once awarding the South Island its current 16 general seats would conflict with that, we actually start removing electorates from the South Island instead to keep the number of electorates under control. This strikes me as a reasonable compromise if we don’t want to increase the size of Parliament any more, as growing the number of electorate seats increases the chance that Labour or National will one day start winning overhang seats, which should be regarded as a perverse outcome in my view, but it’s not my preferred outcome. (especially as I think they’ve set the ratio dangerously high, with too many electorate seats for comfort. You’ll note I was a bit more relaxed on this subject in my blog, but I think we’ve shown it’s actually quite possible to break list seat parity in recent campaigns, we’re merely lucky it didn’t happen due to Jacindamania. Little’s Labour Party might have done it.)

              I already stated my preferred outcome is actually to increase the number of list seats right now to restore the balance to 50:50 temporarily, (our ratio of MPs to population is actually lower now than it was before we set up MMP and added an extra 21 seats. We’d probably bring that ratio higher than before by expanding to 142 seats, which I am personally okay with, but I can see it not being popular given the reaction to growing Parliament to 120 in the first place) but I would also consider relaxing the south island quota if people were set on 120 MPs max. Either way, we do need to do something to arrest the growth in the number of electorates, as we are reaching unhealthy territory there for our two largest parties where they don’t necessarily get a very large list caucus. Under this solution, we would need to make periodic reviews of the size of Parliament a thing. The EC’s solution builds in periodic reviews, as we already do that based on the Census to draw new electorate boundaries every so often.

              It’s a tradeoff as to what you like the most or least, really: the possibility of regular overhangs even for large-to-medium parties like National and Labour, having a larger parliament that keeps a more reasonable ratio of electorate to list MPs, or having less, geographically larger electorates in the south island to arrest the growth in the number of electorates. Whatever we go, something has to give. For me, the status quo where we keep the South Island quota as-is and don’t change the size of parliament is the worst possible outcome, as my chief concern is proportionality of Parliament, and I don’t really think National or Labour need extra seats. I’m not personally fussed too much between the other two, but I think it’s probably better for south islanders if we don’t make their electorates any geographically larger- the Māori electorates already show how difficult that can be, and we don’t want the deep south feeling similarly hard to campaign in.

              • dukeofurl …
                29 May 2018 at 9:35 am

                I bet the Nationals are more keen on the RC recommendation of lowering the minimum % threshold for getting into parliament than they were last time.

                • alwyn …
                  29 May 2018 at 11:03 am

                  I think you got the Party name wrong.
                  It will be Labour who will get keener if they think that NZF and the Greens are going to miss out AND Labour aren’t going to poll as well as National.
                  If National think that they can beat Labour and the minnows are all going to disappear they will be only too happy to keep the current threshold.

                  • dukeofurl …
                    29 May 2018 at 12:42 pm

                    I dont know the official labour policy on the RC but they did want some changes. It was national who pulled the plug, of course they had support parties around then which they dont have now.
                    They came close to getting a majority on their own in 2014, but that was with John key and Kim Dot Com. Even that fell short at the final count.

                    Reality is both parties NEED more than one partner in government as they dont want to be under the thumb.
                    Imagine national with only maori party being in government, or Act for that matter. both parties want to play their partners off each other.

                    The previous FPP definitely favoured national and I cant see them trying to get the best they can out of MMP as well, and that is by going below 5%

                    eg FPP, this has a table where twice national had less votes but a comfortable majority of seats
                    1978
                    1981

                    plus 1954 they were only 1500 votes ahead but 10 more seats
                    https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/research-papers/document/00PLLawRP11031/parliamentary-voting-systems-in-new-zealand-and-the-referendum

                    a telling line was : FPP doesnt really give the voters the chance to ‘fire a government’ as often as you would think.

                    • Matthew Whitehead …
                      31 May 2018 at 10:33 pm

                      Labour had no election policy on the Electoral Commission’s recommendation. During opposition they said they wanted to implement it as presented, but then again it also opposed the TPP in opposition.

                      What you’re talking about is not “having more than one partner,” it’s “strong minority government,” where there is a strong party leading the government that has multiple partners with which to pass bills.

                      We have “multiple coalition partners” now, but only one way to pass bills because the party leading the government is (comparatively) weak and must rely on consensus between all parties. The reason it’s arguably “bad” is because NZ First voters aren’t happy with the rest of govt and the rest of govt isn’t happy with NZ First, which is more a function of them being not very compatible with the rest of the political spectrum in New Zealand than anything else. Consensus type governments work just fine overseas when there is a stronger overlap between partners.

                      Alwyn is right that if you wanted to take a partisan approach to electoral reform, Labour would be well-advised to implement the recommendations, and National would be very brave to consider doing the same. But that’s honestly not how electoral reform should work- you should consider what’s healthy for the country and for increasing voter participation, regardless of who it helps or hurts.

              • dukeofurl …
                29 May 2018 at 10:57 am

                Theres not really any danger from a party with 30- 40% or more having overhang seats.
                Just look at the numbers last year

                national 15 list seats 41 electorates
                labour 17 list seats 29 electorates

                Its impossible for national to win 56 electorates and be on the edge of an overhang.

                Even at the other end in 2002 when national was 20.9% they were still eligible for list seats -9.

                Germany has a different problem, as their last election with nominal 598 seats produced 111 overhangs, which was a big jump from around 30 in last parliament.
                That happens, I think, because there lists are regionally based

                • Matthew Whitehead …
                  31 May 2018 at 9:58 pm

                  Correct, the danger of larger parties getting overhangs happens at about 25% for the National Party, and a little lower for Labour, with close-to-current relative distribution of electoral seats. We were at the stage under Andrew Little where we were genuinely questioning if David Parker was electable as a list-only MP, for instance, so we’ve already had a close brush with “too many electorate MPs.”

                  And yes, Germany’s “problem” isn’t with the relative balance of number of electorates to number of total seats. It’s with a federal constitutional court basically saying that “losing” the national-level effect of your party vote by having it eliminate a regional-level overhang is unconstitutional, as such all regional-level overhang seats in Germany stay national-level overhang seats, but extra list seats are added to balance out that overhang.

                  You all know I’m gung-ho about discussing that sort of thing, but that’s a 301-level discussion about electoral systems, and I’ve only really gotten us to about 151-level on that so far.

      • Gosman 2.1.2
        29 May 2018 at 4:31 pm

        Why does NZ have a threshold anyway?

        • Matthew Whitehead 2.1.2.1
          31 May 2018 at 10:05 pm

          The official reasoning is that counting votes for smaller parties can result in “unstable government” by picking inexperienced political candidates, or having inexperienced party leaders go into coalition with a party that they don’t have sufficient common ground with in order to get a slightly better deal, and end up resulting in a snap election.

          To which my response is: have you seen New Zealand First? Clearly 5% is the highest they were willing to go in sacrificing proportionality, and that wasn’t enough, so we might as well start lowering it and let people vote based on how stable and experienced they think a party will be. Stability of government has always been something that is best determined by the election campaign, not the electoral system.

          Some people claim there is an unofficial reason that it keeps the nazis and fundies out, but that claim is just as spurious as the stability one- NZF are just slightly more respectful nationalists, and UF brought the fundies in. As long as there’s a free press, extreme results can happen- stability is in how the other, more established parties deal with those results after the fact, and we’ve gotten pretty good at that after having a shock lesson in ’96.

    • cleangreen 2.2
      29 May 2018 at 7:42 am

      Ha ha ha OAB.
      I love your statement here; “I just want to hear the whinging right wing scum, whinging.”

      These polls are folly really.

      I prefer to leave time to show the real picure of wherebiit’s going, as a lot of water needs to be passing over the bridge until 2020.

      As far as the gloomy ‘predictions of NZF – I know Winston and met him several times and his planed policies are the best available for NZ but unfortunately Labour has not taken some of his best policies on-board yet.

      I predict as labour slides they will turn to their partners and decide to take some more of his policies on-board.

      I wouldn’t signal NZF First’s demise yet as “there is a lot of water to pass under the bridge” yet Chis, and I acknowledge that you are not very keen on Winston or NZF.
      he cant be put in the “Dancing for Stars Politicians graveyard” along with Fox, Seymour and all others gone before.

      Fox was far better than Seymour but why is HE still in that competition???????

    • james 2.3
      29 May 2018 at 10:27 am

      “I just want to hear the whinging right wing scum, whinging.”

      Sadly for you – thats not really happening – most of us that I have spoken to are quite happy with the poll results.

      • One Anonymous Bloke 2.3.1
        29 May 2018 at 10:37 am

        …whinging about the findings of the MMP review being implemented.

      • Baba Yaga 2.3.2
        29 May 2018 at 2:10 pm

        A new government, with a popular leader, hot on the heals of its first budget…

        …is still polling behind the main party of opposition.

        I hate to admit it, but Bradbury’s closer to mark on the trouble Labour have than most from the left https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/05/28/tvnz-colmar-poll-and-evidence-of-the-new-ally-party-tdb-warned-you-about-months-ago/.

        • Hanswurst 2.3.2.1
          29 May 2018 at 11:22 pm

          The government is not polling behind the main party of opposition. What you are observing is that those who would prefer a Labour-led government have a greater willingness to vote for the policy mixes of the main party’s coalition partners than is the case with their National-voting counterparts.

          • Baba Yaga 2.3.2.1.1
            30 May 2018 at 7:29 pm

            You’re kidding yourself.

            According to this latest poll and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_general_election,_2017, NZF have dropped from 7.2% to 4.2%, the Greens have dropped from 6.27% to 5%. National are up marginally to 45%, Labour have risen from 36.89% to 43%. Both NZF and the Greens have both shed support post election, which means Labour’s current coalition partners are showing LESS willingness to vote for policy mixes of the main party’s coalition partners.

            • Wow 2.3.2.1.1.1
              30 May 2018 at 11:14 pm

              Being MMP and all, the government is not just Labour, nor the Greens nor NZF, it is all three, and is still not polling behind the main party of opposition, just like Hanswurst said.

              Why aren’t you consistent in your use of decimals?

              • Baba Yaga …
                31 May 2018 at 10:35 am

                “Why aren’t you consistent in your use of decimals?”
                The sources I used don’t treat the decimals the same.

                “Being MMP and all, the government is not just Labour”
                This is a ‘Labour led Government’. It’s two support parties are now polling below the 5% threshold. Labour is in charge, and they need to own the cock up their making of the country.

  3. Kat 3
    28 May 2018 at 8:06 pm

    Can’t see Hooton agreeing with this analysis, doesn’t quite fit the Goebbels propaganda book of expected dead cert public opinion reaction to strawman policy spin tactics. At least 30% of the 45.1% are dead………cert National supporters, the rest are pure greedy. We live in divided times.

    • Matthew Whitehead 3.1
      28 May 2018 at 8:40 pm

      Honestly Hooton agreeing with me would be shocking, I’m quite happy to have a different take on things than him.

      • Kat 3.1.1
        28 May 2018 at 9:25 pm

        Perhaps a stint on 9>Noon….. some facts instead of constant fiction/spin would be welcome by many listeners.

    • cleangreen 3.2
      29 May 2018 at 7:45 am

      Kat; 100% well said.

    • Matthew Whitehead 3.3
      31 May 2018 at 10:09 pm

      You’ll all be amused to know Hooton has now quoted my numbers (in the most misleading fashion possible) and disagrees with my analysis, even when I called him on not mentioning it on Twitter. XD

  4. Sanctuary 4
    29 May 2018 at 7:17 am

    If the Greens are hovering around 5% at the next election then, given their historic problem of getting their lazy-ass supporters to actually vote on the day, Labour would be crazy not to let them have an electorate seat as a lifeboat. If the Greens keep up their low polling, I would expect Labour to start the groundwork for a lifeboat seat for the Greens (and possibly another for NZ First) around this time next year.

    5% vote = 6 seats.

    4.5% vote = 0 seats.

    4.5% vote + lifeboat electorate = 5 seats.

    • Puckish Rogue 4.1
      29 May 2018 at 8:18 am

      But but but gifting an electorate seat is like the absolute worst thing in the world ever and something only the right would do, isn’t it?

      • Robert Guyton 4.1.1
        29 May 2018 at 8:26 am

        It stains a party’s record but it depends on what’s at stake; they might be prepared to take a hit to their reputation if it saves the country from another round of National’s destructive behaviour 🙂

        • Puckish Rogue 4.1.1.1
          29 May 2018 at 8:29 am

          Thats fantastic,” we don’t want to do it but with a heavy heart (and much soul searching) we’ve decided its better if we stay in power” 🙂

          • Robert Guyton 4.1.1.1.1
            29 May 2018 at 8:45 am

            I imagine that’s why any party does this, rather than to be vindictive. Judith Collins, however, would do it for spite!

          • mac1 4.1.1.1.2
            29 May 2018 at 9:28 am

            It’s a variation of the ethical argument example of the ‘trolley problem’ and the training I had as a boy of the principle of the double effect. Is it permissible to use the technique of doing deals over electorates to gain electoral advantage if it is legal, the other side is already doing it, and the harm caused by the other side winning is greater than the harm caused by pursuing electoral advantage by ethically questionable methods?

            It’s a moral philosophy course in itself.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem

            What a way to start a day!

            • Puckish Rogue 4.1.1.1.2.1
              29 May 2018 at 9:33 am

              Well for me, in this instance, is it legal and if it is then its fine. I mean I’m sure everyone in Epsom is aware of the ramifications of their actions just like everyone was aware in the Coromandal when Helen Clark openly encouraged Labour voters to vote for Jeanette Fitzsimons

              So to me its all good…well maybe not all good but its legal and everyone knows whats happening

      • Matthew Whitehead 4.1.2
        31 May 2018 at 10:13 pm

        Neither side should have to do it. We should just lower the threshold to be more reasonable. It is silly that electorates need to be used as a workaround to get perfectly electable parties into Parliament, and are simultaneously propping up parties that are all-but-dead at the same time.

    • The Chairman 4.2
      29 May 2018 at 10:57 am

      “Labour would be crazy not to let them have an electorate seat as a lifeboat.”

      On current polling, perhaps. However, if things change and Labour think they can do it alone, they will.

      Labour could also look at allowing the Greens a significant policy win to help up lift their support.

      Holding the cannabis referendum before the election won’t encourage those lazy-ass supporters (as you put it) to actually vote on election day. So Labour aren’t doing the Greens any favours there.

  5. Pete George 5
    29 May 2018 at 7:56 am

    These polls are an approximate indication of current party support, but they are meaningless regarding the 2020 election, which looks like being contested on things like performance in housing and the Provincial Development Fund.

    How the three party government holds together could also be a factor, as well as things that can have direct impact on voters like petrol prices and mortgage interest rates.

    But in particular it may be contested on what Labour and Greens decide to campaign on as result of any outcome of the Tax Working Group, and also of the “expert advisory group to support the overhaul of the welfare system” that was announced yesterday.

    There’s no way of knowing at this stage how this may all pan out.

    • Anne 5.1
      29 May 2018 at 10:21 am

      Very true PG.
      Goodness me, I’ve been agreeing with Pete a few times lately. 😯

    • The Chairman 5.2
      29 May 2018 at 10:36 am

      There will be a lolly scramble to help offset any negativity resulting from the out come of the Tax Working Group.

    • Matthew Whitehead 5.3
      31 May 2018 at 10:14 pm

      I agree with you it’s too early to tell anything about 2020. This is an indication of what the poll would tell you if we had a snap election right now.

  6. The Chairman 6
    29 May 2018 at 9:58 am

    Considering the policy gains the Greens have achieved, they must be awfully concerned with their downward trend in the polls. What can the Greens possibly pull out of their hat now to turn that downward trend around?

    And considering Winston’s support of the TPP coupled with his win for foreign aid, it’s no surprise NZF are polling so low.

    Labour should be concerned there was no large bounce from the budget, seems the appetite for fiscal constraint isn’t that large. Nevertheless, should still be happy their support didn’t take a major dive.

    Nat’s will be happy they’re still polling strong, but disappointed they don’t have the numbers to form a Government. If only they had friends.

  7. greywarshark 7
    29 May 2018 at 11:25 am

    See The Daily Blog for Chris Trotters view on Winston and how NZF are being perceived.

  8. Phil 8
    29 May 2018 at 4:31 pm

    These simulations represent the Greens being under-threshold 48.3% of the time, which I personally think accounting for the previous polls is an absolutely unrealistic assumption, and should be dismissed out of hand. (any party that’s consistently polling at 5% or above has never fallen below threshold under MMP).

    Bad use of polling.

    • Matthew Whitehead 8.1
      31 May 2018 at 10:17 pm

      Your reply is unhelpfully vague. What’s bad? The conclusion that the simulation is accurate, or my conclusion that based on earlier polling-vs-election comparisons parties polling over 5% consistently are unlikely to go under threshold at all?

  9. CHCOff 9
    29 May 2018 at 4:42 pm

    Chasing polls is about chasing the media narrative, which is fruitless as that essentially means chasing the National Party apparatus in one way or another, which is just more tomfoolery.

    Governing should be a quiet non threatening way to build up the respective party brands, with the politicking for last 6 months of election build up. Elections are about personalities, but i’d say that in between times, partys (particularly governing ones) have the opportunity to demonstrate their values in what they are in making their brand.

    As per usual, NZ1st will be higher than what’s given, the Greens lower.

    Labour shouldn’t be Jacinda, but be a team that embodies what Jacinda brings to the table, NZ1st should wake up some autonomy among National party voters out of their structural stupor, and the Greens should resurect Rod Donald in unifying environmental moderates across the spectrum with the organising of radical leftie anarchists as something useful to a sensible progressive political direction.

    Sounds about right to me anyhow!

    • Matthew Whitehead 9.1
      31 May 2018 at 10:21 pm

      Actually comparing the 2008 polls to the election suggests that after being in Government NZFirst doesn’t tend to under-poll/have a late surge the way it does while in opposition, so… *shrug*

      (I think a “late surge” is probably the better description of what happens with the NZF vote, personally, as it has been reflected in late polls before, which would indicate it’s not so much under-polling as their campaign becomes dramatically more effective in the last few days before the election. This likely reflects NZ First’s appeal with swing voters who don’t make up their mind very early, but that appeal seems to go away when they’re in government- almost as if they’re a party that benefits from anti-establishment populism, huh?)

    • alwyn 9.2
      31 May 2018 at 10:35 pm

      “Greens should resurect Rod Donald”
      Now that would really be something.
      I reminds me of the advice on how to start a successful religion.
      First you die. Then you come back to life.
      Somehow I don’t think it is going to happen in the case of the Green Party.

      With all due respect to the man, and I did respect him, we go back to the old song
      “Rod Donald’s body lies a- mouldering in the grave
      Rod Donald’s body lies a- mouldering in the grave
      Rod Donald’s body lies a- mouldering in the grave
      His soul is marching on”

      Sorry, but after the Parties backing the fraud of its then chromosome XX leader I’m afraid his soul has turned up its toes and shrivelled away.

      • Incognito 9.2.1
        31 May 2018 at 10:49 pm

        Sorry, but after the Parties backing the fraud of its then chromosome XX leader I’m afraid his soul has turned up its toes and shrivelled away.

        You make it sound like the alleged fraud was committed when MT was co-leader of the party, which is of course far from the truth. Has she been charged with anything?

        The only thing that’s shrivelling here is the quality of your comments.

  10. Jackel 10
    30 May 2018 at 4:59 pm

    Lies, damn lies and statistics. Tories aren’t known as a sympathetic lot if you’re having a hard day so I don’t have a lot of sympathy for them. But it’s up to each individual to figure out how the system is screwing them over and use their vote accordingly. Or otherwise organise but don’t expect help where you think you should get it.

    • Matthew Whitehead 10.1
      31 May 2018 at 10:22 pm

      The point of that phrase is not to distrust statistics. It is to warn of statistics used for the purposes of spin.

      I am very consistent about my modelling and tell you whenever I change something.