TVNZ and Herald polls

Anthony R0bins
12 years ago
Categories: election 2011, polls
Tags: colmar brunton, don't panic, herald digipoll, polls

Two polls out yesterday. A ONE News Colmar Brunton:

National 56% (no change)
Labour 30% (up 1%)
The Greens 9%
New Zealand First 2.2%
Maori Party 1.3%
Act 0.9%
Mana Party 0.3%
United Future 0.1%.
Preferred PM: John Key 56% (down 3%), Phil Goff 12% (up 4%)

National 54.2% (up 0.7%)
Labour 29.1% (down 0.7%)
The Greens 10.1%
New Zealand First 1.7%
Maori Party 1.9%
Act 0.9%
Mana Party 0.1%
United Future 0.5%
Conservative 1.1%

The changes in the major parties are margin of error stuff – basically, nothing’s moving. This seems to have surprised some of the “mainstream” commentators. Given the strength of Labour’s campaign they were expecting more. Here for example is Guyon Espiner:

Labour has made the running in this election campaign.

Its policies of introducing a capital gain tax, compulsory KiwiSaver and raising the retirement age have been both brave and considered and they amount to a genuine alternative economic policy. That has counted for precisely nothing. …

Labour made a strategically smart decision to focus their campaign on serious policy rather than have Phil Goff compete with John Key in a popularity contest.

That did not mean an absence of leadership. Goff showed he could foot it with Key in the first leaders’ debate on TV One. But again, nothing. …

This poll is a brutal kick in the guts for Labour. …

Labour has not moved from 30% support, the level it settled on after the Capital Gains Tax policy came out in July, having spent most of the previous two and a half years in the mid-30s. …

It’s not that the policies are unpopular. Voters are aware of the economic challenges New Zealand faces and seem ready to listen to new ideas, even ones which were previously thought too politically difficult. But they are simply not listening to Phil Goff and it is difficult to see what could change that.

Steady on Guyon! It would have been nice to see a bounce in the first week of the campaign proper, but it certainly wasn’t expected. Events always take a while to show up in the polls. The Left needs to see movement soon – time’s running out fast – but it isn’t a surprise not to see it yet.

Even the usually hostile commentators agree that Labour is running a strong campaign, smartly focused on popular policy, and boldly facing some hard decisions. It’s hard to imagine what more they could do. If the polls remain stuck until the election then nothing was ever going to move them! It won’t be for want of a brave, honest and wholehearted attempt by Labour and the Left. And if the polls do start to move, well, a lot can happen in three weeks…