Roy Morgan poll finds National behind Labour/Greens

A Roy Morgan poll finds National down by 4.5% to 43.5%, now just behind a potential Labour/ Greens alliance, which is up to 44% (up 5%).

Support for the National partners was virtually unchanged, with the Maori Party unchanged at 2%, Act NZ was 0.5% (down 0.5%) and United Future was 0.5% (up 0.5%).

Of the three Parliamentary Opposition parties - Labour’s support was at 29.5% (up 3.5%), Greens 14.5% (up 1.5%) and New Zealand First 7.5% (down 0.5%).

All parties outside parliament were sub-1%, including an unspecified level of support for Gareth Morgan’s TOP.

“The fall in support for National comes after Prime Minister Bill English announced a raft of potential reforms to New Zealand’s superannuation laws early in March including increasing the retirement age to 67 from 65 by 2040. The proposed reform will impact anyone under 45 today,” says pollster Gary Morgan.

After noting both ACT (too timid) and NZ First (too bold) have criticised the move, Mr Morgan adds: “The clear opposition to the changes suggests Prime Minister English risks losing the National majority if these reforms become an election issue."

However, a TV3-Reid Research poll released on Monday found 52% of people supported the PM’s proposal to increase the age of super between 2037 and 2040.

Reid Research also found more stable results for the government overall.

It had National up 2 points to 47.1%, and Labour down by the same margin to 30.8% and the Greens almost static on 11.2% (for a combined Labour-Greens vote of 42%.

NZ First was down 0.5% to 7.6%, but still in a position to hold the balance of power and potentially get a Red-Green-Black government across the line.

Other parties were under 1%.

The most intriguing aspect of the Reid poll is that it had Labour’s new deputy leader Jacinda Ardern (10.5%) moving ahead of leader Andrew Little (8.3%) in the preferred PM stakes.

Bill English had 25% support as preferred PM, compared to John Key’s 36.7% at the time he announced his retirement and an average of just over 40%.

Roy Morgan methodology
Electors were asked: “If a New Zealand Election were held today which party would receive your party vote?” This latest New Zealand Roy Morgan Poll on voting intention was conducted by telephone – both landline and mobile telephone – with a NZ wide cross-section of 847 electors between February 27 – March 12, 2017. Of all electors surveyed 7.5% (up 2%) didn’t name a party. It has a margin of error of 3.2%.

Reid Research methodology
The Newshub-Reid Research poll was conducted March 10-19. 1000 people were surveyed, 750 by telephone and 250 by internet panel. ​​​​​ It has a margin of error of 3.1%.