Good trends

As you may have noticed, Labour have been doing rather well in recent polls. Tony Milne has written a useful piece pointing out the trend that is emerging, which he has since updated to cover last week’s One News poll, and this evening’s 3 News poll.

(Side point: tonight’s poll has National on 45.8% and John Key’s personal popularity plunging to 40.5% – not good for Mr Key)

Of course, I’m quite satisfied with how this trend is emerging. There is one minor issue though which hasn’t had much (if any?) coverage.

Both Tariana Turia and Pita Sharples are on record saying that they won’t contest the next election. Fair enough, and all the best to them.

This does however create problems for pollsters who traditionally calculate how many seats there would be in Parliament by assuming the number of electorate seats each party holds will stay static, and then extrapolating their poll results out for the party vote.

In a situation where two electorate MPs are going to retire, this does create an interesting situation.

Being the partisan hack I am, I re-ran the numbers from tonight’s poll, using the scenario whereby Turia and Sharples retire in 2014 and Labour retakes those electorate seats. I realise that is a very subjective assumption, and might be something I write about in future, and I certainly hope Morgan Godfery writes about.

Anyway. Here are the numbers according to tonight’s 3 News poll:

As Duncan Garner pointed out and David Farrar was happy to re-iterate, on these numbers, the Maori Party would have the balance of power. National + ACT + UF + Maori would have 63 seats (the exact number needed to govern in a 123 seat Parliament), on the other side, Labour + Greens + Maori would also have 63 seats, and they could possibly also get Hone on side. We could speculate until the cows come home who would get to form the government, but lets take another look, assuming that Labour pick up Tamaki Makaurau and Te Tai Hauauru.

With the Maori Party reduced to one electorate seat, their 1.4% of the party vote is just enough for them to bring in a list MP (I’d assume that Te Ururoa Flavell would be joined by Rahui Katene). Labour’s total number of seats of course does not change, but the size of Parliament reduces by one seat, meaning you could pass a budget with 62 votes rather than 63.

This dramatically changes things. National + ACT + UF + Maori would now only muster 61 seats, and simply would not be able to form a government. Labour + Green + Maori would have their requisite 62 seats, and as before could take that to 63.

It does show quite clearly just how close things are at the moment. If National lose just a few more percentage points to Labour, then John Key would have absolutely no way of forming a government.

One final thing: never write Winston off.

Yet another good poll for Labour

There is another Roy Morgan poll out, and it’s more good news for Labour. It continues the trend of Labour slowly rising, up to 31.5%

Perhaps more importantly, the gap between the Opposition (50.5%) and the Government (48%) parties continues to increase. On these numbers David Shearer would be the Prime Minister.

Good stuff.

Death by a thousand cuts

Roy Morgan have just released their third poll post-election, and its more good news for Labour and more bad news for National. The trend is continuing.

Labour have gained half a percentage point at National’s expense. Interestingly the Greens have dropped down to 11% and New Zealand First have gained half a percentage point, now up to 6% – undoubtably off the back of Winston’s strong performances in the house.

The opposition now commands 51.5% versus the government’s 48.5%. The proportion of New Zealanders who think we’re heading in the right direction has dropped 4 points – not insignificant – and now sits at 57%.

It’s not a huge gain, but it’s certainly movement in the right direction. With the mess the government is finding itself in over dozens of issues, I’d expect this to be the trend for some time to come.

Mood of the nation

I missed this last week when UMR released the results of their regular ‘mood of the nation’ survery. Full details are here, but in short, New Zealanders increasingly think we are heading in the wrong direction. When the Government seems to have no idea what is happening with the economy, and no plan to fix it, who can blame them…

More good news for Labour…

I’ve been doing a bit more thinking about last night’s 3 News poll (my original analysis is here). I’ve spoken to one or two Labour people who are far less optimistic about the numbers than myself. Fair enough: the last time Labour was polling higher than National was 2006 – we’re not used to good news from polls.

Four additional points, all rather important…

1. This is the first time the “left block” (those parties now in opposition) have polled higher than the “right block” (those now in government) – since 2006. This is very significant.
2. The 3 News poll is not a rogue poll, it is part of a trend. It is in line with the other two, Roy Morgan, polls published this year (here and here).
3. Looking at the change in support in the 3 News poll – Labour has gained 3.3% support – and it’s all come at National’s expense. This is excellent news. In an MMP environment, the only way to form a government is if you and your mates have the majority of the vote. David Shearer is only going to become Prime Minister if he can take votes off the National Party, and so far it looks like this is happening.
4. John Key’s own personal popularity (45.6%) is lower than the National Party’s (46.5%) for the first time. Ever. If this trend continues, then it’s only a matter of time until his leadership will come under question, and the vultures (Steven Joyce, Judith Collins etc) will start to circle.

There is still a lot of work to be done, and a lot of water to go under the bridge. Neither of these can be over stated. Still, these are very encouraging signs.

Good news for Labour

There were some fascinating numbers in the first 3 News Reid Research poll, released this evening.

It shows that John Key is dropping down in popularity, and David Shearer has made a strong first impression.

Firstly, the party vote numbers…

National – 46.5% – down 3.3%

Labour – 29.4% – up 3.4%

Greens – 13.3% – down 0.1%

NZ First – 5% – up 1.9%

The next highest party is the Conservatives on 1.4%. Special mention must go to ACT, who are down 0.8% and are only polling 0.2%.

On these numbers, and taking into account electorate seats, it is likely that David Shearer would be the Prime Minister. A combined Labour/Green/NZ First government would have 47.7% versus National’s 46.5% (I’m going to take a punt and assume that the Maori Party aren’t going to survive after Tariana Turia and Pita Sharpes retire at the end of this term).

They’ve also done polling on preferred prime minister. It’s not looking good for John Key who is polling at 45.8% – his lowest ever rating. David Shearer is in the poll for the first time, and his first ever preferred prime minister rating is 10.1%. This is higher than Phil Goff ever got – a very promising sign.

With the continued unpopularity of the Government’s asset sales agenda, their bungling of the sale of the Crafar Farms and the continued instability in National’s coalition partners, it’s going to be a very interesting year!