Poll Shows Incumbent Labour Party Falling Further Behind

Another poll is signalling that there will be a change of government in New Zealand following the October 14 election. Treasury released its pre-election budget economic and fiscal update today which gives a starting point for the government following the vote. It showed a downgraded fiscal outlook but improved growth (see MNI Higher FY24 Deficit Forecast Creates Some Uncertainty Around RBNZ).

• The latest Newshub-Reid Research poll showed support for the opposition National Party rising 4.3pp to 40.9% and while its potential coalition ally the ACT Party fell 2pp to 10.1%, the two together have enough support to form a majority government with around 66 seats. 61 seats are required to form government.
• Support for Labour has fallen 5.5pp to only 26.8% while its partner the Greens rose 2.7pp to 12.3%. NZ First is still under the 5% threshold at 4.6% and Te Pati Maori is expected to win 4 seats.
• In terms of preferred PM, Nationals Luxon and Labour’s Hipkins are even on 22.5%.