The latest Taxpayers’ Union/Curia Poll is out and National has overtaken Labour, echoing the INews/Kantar poll taken in March. There have now been three polls, the Roy Morgan, the 1News/Kantar, and the TU/Curia, that have National in front of Labour.
| Party | Support | Change from last month |
| National | 37.8% | +2.5 |
| Labour | 36.8% | +0.6 |
| Greens | 9.4% | -3.0 |
| ACT | 8.4% | -2.8 |
| Maori | 3.6% | +3.5 |
| NZ First | 1.7% | -0.1 |
| Other | 2.3% | -0.7 |
National takes the lead for the first time since the Taxpayers’ Union Curia Polls began. However, much of National’s gain appear to have come at ACT’s expense. Labour holds steady with a slight bump, the Greens drop and the Maori Party rises.
The shifts in party support result in National gaining three seats, ACT losing four, the Maori Party gaining four, the Greens losing four, and no change for the Labour Party. This means the gap between the Centre-Right and the Centre-Left blocs has shrunk from nine seats in January to just one seat in April. Both blocs would not receive enough seats to govern, thus, the Maori Party would be the ‘kingmaker.’
Taxpayers’ Union/Curia Poll
This poll would be a loss for Christopher Luxon, despite National leading all other parties. This shows how perilous things are for them, with just ACT existing as a support party. If this were the election night result, Christopher Luxon would lose the leadership of the National party as well.
This also shows the dangers of enabling the racist Maori Party, whose racist rhetoric continues unabated. Having them with the balance of power should frighten you, as their vision of New Zealand does not include either of those two words.
Luxon really needs to lift his game. He is slowly climbing in the preferred Prime Minister stakes, while Ardern is falling.
Luxon meanwhile has a more positive net favourability (+12%) than Ardern (+9%), but fewer people have an opinion on Luxon either way. Ardern’s net favourability continues to drop like a stone. Ardern’s net favourability has fallen from +33% (October 2021) to +9%(April 2022).
Of course this could all change considerably as the economy continues to tank and the ruling bloc no longer have the fear of Covid to hold over everybody.
The focus will now be on their inability to meet even the easiest of election promises, and a legacy of utter failure in anything except borrowing humungous sums of money to burden us all with debt for at least the next two generations.
Then there is the Tauranga by-election to contend with and the ramifications depending on who stands and who wins.
The Government may have a majority but it looks like they’ve lost the room. That’s why they will use that majority to ram through deeply unpopular reforms in health, local bodies and advance their divisive co-governance agenda. They know they are going to lose the next election, but they also know National rarely unwinds Labour’s reforms when in office.
Please share this article so others can discover The BFD.
