Latest news with #1NewsVerianPoll
1News
12-08-2025
- Politics
- 1News
John Campbell: Please, National and Labour, do something. Anything!
Analysis: National on 34, Labour on 33, a total of 67. Two-thirds of us. And that's two-thirds of the people prepared to express a preference. Twelve per cent of us don't know or wouldn't say. Yes, one of the striking features of the latest 1News Verian Poll is that the combined total of support for National and Labour remains near (or not far above) historically low levels. Sure, it was 63% in the previous poll, and 67% is a slight improvement on that, but it was 68% the poll before, and then, heading backwards through successive polls, 67%, 66%, 66%, and a year ago, 68%. And on election night, 2023? Sixty-five per cent. In other words, the support calcification continues in what we call the centre, by which we really mean the old dogs. National and Labour, arthritic, teeth desperately in need of repair, long past chasing seagulls on the beach, surrounded by barking pup parties that increasingly do not defer to them, do not respect their threadbare 'wisdom', and do not know their place. ADVERTISEMENT There is such a strikingly visible irony here. Speaking to Breakfast, Victoria University associate professor Lara Greaves and former National Party press secretary Ben Thomas gave their takes on the latest 1News Verian Poll. (Source: Breakfast) As National is dragged down into the populist politics of its coalition partners, as Labour considers what to do about tax policy and how best to work with Te Pāti Māori, should Chris Hipkins (and co) need to court TPM to get into Government in roughly fourteen months time, an answer, surely, is: Do something, anything, to define and assert brands that have genuine meaning. I'm not talking about resolute supporters. Tribal voters can spend days telling you what their party stands for. But diehards don't decide elections. Floating voters do. And the big two don't seem to be engaging them anywhere near enough. Which means they're both dependent, utterly dependent, on their coalition partners. (Source: 1News) Or on finding leaders and policy (perish the thought) that the country might actually want to vote for. ADVERTISEMENT Of course, with the exception of Labour's unprecedented 50% in 2020, it's always been versions of this under MMP. But context matters here. Sixty-seven per cent now. Sixty-five per cent on election night. As I wrote in July 2023, election night 2020 had Labour on 50% and National on 25.6%. That's a total of 75.6%. Election night 2017 had National on 44.4% and Labour on 36.9%. That's a total of 81.3%. Indeed, prior to 2023, the last time there was an election in which the two major parties, aka the 'centre', received less than 70% of the vote, was in 2002. A generation ago. It now feels habitual. Set. ADVERTISEMENT And it's hard to find any material signs that National and Labour are responding to that. Nats not delivering Back in 2021, only just over a year after he was first elected to Parliament, National's answer was Christopher Luxon. He became leader so quickly, it almost felt breathless. And National won. But there has never been a one term National government or National-led Government. Ever. And the fact that it's even a possibility now tells us the Nats aren't delivering what voters want. Luxon's pedigree, as he told us so often his tongue was in danger of repetitive strain injury, was as CEO of Air New Zealand. What he lacked in any perceptible political viewpoint, any kind of tangible aspirations beyond doing, you know, stuff for 'ordinary Kiwis', he made up for in management prowess. ADVERTISEMENT And then David Seymour and Winston Peters smoked him like kahawai. This matters because it's so far from what the country was promised, and not just by Christopher Luxon himself. We were told, repeatedly, for example, that the Treaty Principles Bill, finally voted down by 112 votes to 11, in the most brutal, embarrassing and unequivocal defeat of a government bill I can recall in three decades of covering politics, was the coalition-agreement price the country had to pay for getting a government of managerial prowess. That's clearly not how it feels to many of us. (Source: 1News) Christopher Luxon is now at 20% in the preferred prime minister polling. Twenty. That's down from 28% a year ago, which wasn't exactly a ringing endorsement at the time. The 'preferred' begins to become a misnomer at that level, doesn't it? 'Don't Know' is at 31%. The Nats should see if she or he is free. ADVERTISEMENT Matthew Hooton, whose Patreon is worth subscribing to, in part for his sometimes gleefully vicious dismantling of his own broad tribe, wrote yesterday, before last night's 1News Verian Poll was released but off the back of a Taxpayers' Union Curia Poll that was even worse for National, that, as Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon 'has failed utterly to provide the basic leadership of the country the job demands'. The problem is, Luxon's leadership was his selling point. He was CEO of Air New Zealand, you know? Sigh. (In hindsight, he should possibly have mentioned that less often.) Meanwhile, Labour are up four to 33%. The morning's headlines in 90 seconds, including poll numbers paint grim picture for leaders, Trump sending the National Guard into Washington, and where have all the coaches gone? (Source: 1News) Labour hasn't earned it Labour will be chuffed with that. Particularly given how little they've done to earn it. And it's significantly up on the 27% they achieved (and again, the word feels like a misnomer) on election night. But it's important to note that Labour were at the same level in February, six months ago. And so were National. And it's been a pretty tough winter since. In other words, Labour are simply returning to where they were, not reaching new highs. ADVERTISEMENT Second, Labour were at 50% less than five years ago. Third, and I love this joke so please forgive me for hauling it out again, there have been more sightings of Elvis than of significant new Labour Party policy. You could say that Labour feel like they're phoning it in. But it sometimes doesn't even feel like they're doing that. Maybe Willow-Jean Prime has lost the party's phone? Here's a fun game. Go to Labour's website and look at their 'News & Updates' section. It's pretty pro-forma opposition stuff. Multiple variations of 'the Government sux'. But David Lange once told me the best way to remain in opposition was to look like one. So, prior to the 1984 election, he did everything he could to look like a government in waiting. Former New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange pictured in March 1985. (Source: Getty) Now, click on Labour's 'Announcement' section. Go on. You'll see it on the right, just beneath the photo of Chippie. 'No news items to display.' ADVERTISEMENT There's nothing there. Lol. So, off we go, one in three of us, not including the 12% of us that can't bring ourselves to make a choice, or to admit to the choice we've made, in search of answers elsewhere. Minor parties drift Act thought it was them. Nope. The party that got 8.64% of the vote on election night and is sitting at 8% in this 1News Verian Poll. And, remember, that's after all the attention, publicity, TV time, etc, that David Seymour received for the Treaty Principles Bill, in particular, and also the Regulatory Standards Bill. Empirically, measurably, it hasn't worked for Act. Writing about the Taxpayers' Union Curia Poll, and a poll question about voter priorities, Hooton points out that 'for all the Coalition's focus on three particular issues, almost no one cares about them as their top issue'. ADVERTISEMENT Just 2.8% of those surveyed in that poll identified 'Māori/Treaty' as their number one priority. Less than 1 in 33 of us. David Seymour keeps telling us we're divided by it. But he hasn't even effectively engaged a potential support base with it. John Campbell with the Waitangi dawn service. (Source: 1News) As I wrote from Waitangi in February of this year and last year and from Turangawaewae in January 2024, the Treaty Principles Bill occasioned a response from Māori that contained and affirmed a sense of identity and unity (kotahitanga) that general politics seems unable to emulate. The message of both this week's polls appears to be that National and Labour need to find a way to bring themselves to step into this space. To stand for something. The Greens have had, by any reasonable assessment, a dreadful year or two with personnel issues. And while they're down two points, they're still third. ADVERTISEMENT New Zealand First are fourth. The party that polled 6% on election night, is at 9% now. Again, like the Greens, you know what they stand for, agree with it or not. When it was a two-horse race When I was young, well and truly pre-MMP, when I really did live in a home of National Party dad and Labour Party mum, and my parents would set out on election day to cast their vote, electorate only under First Past the Post, duly and seriously cancelling each other out, before heading home for a nice cup of tea, or something considerably stronger in the Campbell family tension of 1981, National and Labour were it. Oh, yes, there were cameos. Social Credit seems particularly extraordinary now, viewed in the rear vision mirror of life. But the choice was essentially a dichotomy. National, Labour. Labour, National. Mum and Dad. Off they went. The polls out this week tell us the the big two are in a kind of stasis. Led by men who between them don't reach the preferred prime minister levels Helen Clark, John Key and Jacinda Ardern all reached on their own. Former National PM John Key's polling, like the Labour PMs either side of him, was on a different level. (Source: Getty) ADVERTISEMENT 'The centre cannot hold,' to quote that brilliance of WB Yeats. Is it really even the centre any longer? Or is National hostage to its coalition partners, and Labour hostage to such a wilful caution that the party's in danger of rendering their policy platform invisible. A solution may be in an economic outlook question in the Verian poll. Asked if they thought the economy would get better, stay the same, or get worse over the next 12 months, 64% of the just over 1,000 people polled said the 'same' or 'worse'. That's a tough reality to live in. Very tough for some. Who's leading people out of that? ADVERTISEMENT And who persuasively looks like they're trying to?
Scoop
04-06-2025
- Business
- Scoop
More Kiwis Oppose Than Support Government's Pay Equity Changes, New Poll Shows
Article – RNZ Nearly two thirds of the public believe the government should have first sought feedback on the controversial change, the latest RNZ Reid Research poll shows., Deputy Political Editor More New Zealanders oppose than support the government's shake-up of the pay equity regime, and a clear majority think the public should have been consulted first, a new poll shows. The latest RNZ Reid Research survey found 43.2 percent of respondents were against the overhaul, compared to just 25.5 percent in favour. Nearly a third – 31.3 percent – remained unsure. On the question of consultation, 68 percent said the government should have first sought feedback, with only 18.6 percent saying no. The remainder – 13.4 percent – were undecided. That opinion carried through to voters' party preferences, with even a slim majority of ACT voters agreeing that there should have been consultation, despite the changes being championed by Workplace Relations Minister and ACT deputy leader Brooke van Velden. The poll also indicated limited public comprehension: just 49.7 percent said they understood the changes, 38.2 percent admitted they did not, and a further 12.1 percent were unsure. More than half of those who claimed a lacked of understanding still expressed an opinion about the policy: 38 percent said they opposed it and 13 percent said they supported it. Respondents were surveyed from 23 May through to 30 May, capturing the immediate reaction to last month's Budget and the $12.8 billion of savings made from the coalition's pay equity pivot. Van Velden had announced the overhaul several weeks earlier, before passing legislation through all stages under urgency. Among the key changes: a new merit test was introduced, as well as a greater focus on whether employers could afford higher wages. The threshold to lodge a claim was lifted, and job comparisons across different industries were restricted. Along with the changes, the coalition also extinguished the 33 claims already being considered under the previous scheme. The government argues the regime had expanded beyond its remit, becoming too costly and confusing. The opposition parties and unions says the changes will make it harder for those in female-dominated sectors to achieve fair pay. The RNZ Reid Research result follows a similar question asked in the latest 1News Verian Poll, released on Tuesday. It found 45 percent opposed the pay equity changes, compared to 39 percent in support, and 16 percent who did not know or wouldn't say. Speaking to RNZ, van Velden said she had received mixed feedback but believed the community now recognised that the changes were necessary. 'It's always going to be a difficult conversation,' she said. 'We have fixed resources, we have to make those difficult decisions on behalf of New Zealanders.' And Prime Minister Christopher Luxon told RNZ he would not do anything differently if given the chance again. 'We made some pretty tough decisions to go through under urgency. But we had to fix a very unworkable and unaffordable law. It had got completely out of whack.' Finance Minister Nicola Willis suggested some of the public opposition or lack of understanding could have been driven by Labour promoting 'misinformation'. 'Labour have had a very confused position, and their hyperbole in claiming that we were ending equal pay has ultimately done a disservice to them and the people they're seeking to represent, because it's basically untrue.' But Labour leader Chris Hipkins said that was sheer desperation. 'Women up and down the country have a right to feel angry,' Hipkins said. 'The government cut billions of dollars that was otherwise going to be going into low paid women's pay packets, and now they're just desperately trying to deflect attention away from that.' The latest RNZ Reid Research poll showed National and ACT losing support, and without the numbers – even with NZ First – to form a government. ACT leader David Seymour said he did not put much stock in any one poll but acknowledged the recent pay equity changes could be on some voters' minds. 'Doing what is right is what is politically popular in the long term, and even if I'm wrong about that, good policy is worth it anyway. 'We have left New Zealand with a more sensible pay equity regime focused on actual gender-based discrimination, and I think that's worth it.' This poll of 1008 people was conducted by Reid Research, using quota sampling and weighting to ensure representative cross section by age, gender and geography. The poll was conducted through online interviews between 23-30 May 2025 and has a maximum margin of error of +/- 3.1 percent at a 95 percent confidence level. The report is available here.
