The latest One News / Colmar Brunton poll was published by TVNZ on Sunday night. The results are as follows, with the brackets showing the results from the December, October and September polls:
Lab - 34% (35, 37, 39)
Nat - 53% (54, 49, 49)
Grn - 6% (4.6, 6, 5)
NZF - 1.7% (2.2, 1.9, 3)
MP - 3.0% (1.7, 2.8, 3)
UF - 0.2% (0.5, 0.4, 1)
ACT - 0.9% (0.8, 0.6, 1)
The Preferred Prime Minister numbers are as follows:
Helen Clark - 27% (30, 33, 33)
John Key - 36% (35, 33, 31)
Winston Peters - 4% (2, 3, 4)
This is a different poll result than the others this year, and shows essentially no change over the summer.
They all show that Labour is the underdog for this campaign and has a lot of work to do between now and the election.
You say: "This is a different poll result than the others this year."
Not really: see http://www.tv3.co.nz/News/PoliticalNews/Story/tabid/419/articleID/45261/cat/67/Default.aspx
The line that all these other polls are showing different numbers is a Labour spin line that you have, as usual, faithfully recorded.
A good year for you to go into Parliament though. It is always best to go into Parliament when your party is going out of Government. It will position you well to be an important frontbencher when Labour goes back into office in a decade or so ... which presumably is why you have chosen 2008 to stand for Parliament.
Posted by: anon | Monday, 18 February 2008 at 02:42 PM
What did the wise man say?
To get selected as a Liarbour candidate, you need to be either a teacher, a unionist, or a poofter.
Posted by: katipunan | Monday, 18 February 2008 at 02:53 PM
come on Labour guys - time to rock the boat a bit - lets have some exciting policy initiatives that make for good dinner table debates - the sort that are too far against national's fundimental beliefs for them to go 'me too".
Posted by: GNZ | Monday, 18 February 2008 at 05:56 PM
GNZ
You are correct, but the major parties are just center hogs. Clambering over each other to get the winning margin with a wish to govern alone. Labour would loose center support as much from a bold left wing policy announcement as National would from a bold policy like privatising the IRD.
This is the problem, center politics, which colour of bland flavour would you prefer?
IMHO, 25 members in both Labour & National would be a good way to free them the shackles of popularism. It would allow them to be in coalitions to advance their agenda from a more pure perspective. But can you imagine either National or Labour being prepared to be an equal partner... No it's way to dangerous, better have [Two Ticks "major_party_name"] again this election and continue the FPP mentality.
Posted by: burt | Monday, 18 February 2008 at 11:31 PM
Burt, I think that the point is, Labour and National's electoral coalitions are about seeking power to advance their agenda. The two things are linked. They could choose to be more firm about agenda at the expense of having less chance to implement it. So we hug the centre and get as many votes as we can. That's our choice.
GNZ - some sympa with that, but see above.
katipunan - your insight is stunning. I mean, I've never heard that one before.
"anon" - have you looked at the electoral results for Hunua? If I am going into parliament after this election, then it means Labour will be winning every seat in the country.... not exactly likely. And other polls, I was thinking more the Roy Morgan. Didn't catch the TV3 one, thanks for pointing it out. The underdog point stands.
Posted by: Jordan Carter | Tuesday, 19 February 2008 at 10:25 AM
And the underdog point certainly stands today. What a shame.
Posted by: anon | Saturday, 23 February 2008 at 03:09 PM