Jason Walls: Poll results show the left bloc's struggling

Political Editor Jason Walls talks to Ryan Bridge about new poll results showing NZ First nearly acquiring double digits.

He points out Labour and National have taken notable drops in the survey, with their respective bloc-parties having to make up the deficit.

As it stands, the left-bloc doesn't have enough to form a government.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jason Walls, our political editor, joins us. Now, Hey Jason,
good afternoon, Ryan. Hey, great news for Winston in this poll.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Yeah, it was indeed. So I looked at it when
it came through and I thought, this is the good,
the bad, and the ugly across New Zealand's political spectrum.
Let's start with the ugly. Labour were down three point
two percentage points to thirty one point six percent. That's
quite a hit, although not altogether that surprising, as apart
from maybe having a crack at endzet to me and

(00:27):
its owners, Labor and Chris Hepkins have not really featured
in the news a whole lot since this poll was conducted.
In terms of the other left leaning parties, the Greens
are up one point two points to nine point four
TI Party Marty pretty steady on three point five, so
not enough seats to form a government, not by a
long way at this stage. Now moving to the bad.

(00:49):
Despite Labour's vote taking quite a hit, Chris Luckson's only
zero point one percentage points higher than Chris Luxen. When
it comes to the preferred prime minister rankings, Luckson is
now on nineteen point seven, which is continuing quite a
major downhill trend. When it comes to this preferred prime
minister polling numbers. He was on thirty five percent on

(01:10):
that same on that same figure this time last year
on preferred prime minister. He will tell you and I
guess it's true that it's not about the personal popularity
of a prime minister. It's about the party itself and
where it's polling. But those numbers do probably have to
hurt when you're looking at them. I can't imagine if
I was the Prime minister looking at my number tanking
that much, I would be very happy or complacent. Then

(01:32):
we come to the good or, as I would argue,
the great, even fantastic. As you pointed out, New Zealand
First Winston and his troops are up to nine point eight.
That's a massive three point seven percentage point gain according
to the last poll. It's huge, huge moves for such
a minor party. And get this, it's actually the first
time in the poll's almost half a decade history that

(01:53):
New Zealand First has been polling higher than the Act Party. Now,
we did talk to David Seymour, acting Prime Minister earlier
today and he was I'm not going to say feeling
a little bit bitter about it.

Speaker 3 (02:05):
Well, we're always happy for our friends around the world
and are up, up and down the country to succeed.
I note that I haven't been asked that question for
the last thirty or forty poles, But you know, we'll
see where.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
The next thirty or forty poles. Not that anyone's counting David.

Speaker 4 (02:21):
Sometimes I think he comes across a little tooth thin skinned. Hey,
you know the major voting issues. This was interesting from
this pole. So of the top five voting issues for people,
I mean, you take health out, they are the four
are all economy related, poverty, employment, economy, and cost of living.
That's what's hurting well any incumbent. Really those issues are

(02:43):
crucial for people right now, aren't they.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
Yeah, I mean you'll just have to look at cost
of living up there as twenty one point six percent
in terms of the major issues that people say are
the major issues in the economy. So that's why you've
got people like Nikola Willis saying that she's going to
sit down with Fonterra and talk about the price of
butter and milk and things like that. They need to
be seen to be doing something even though people are
still hurting.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
Because otherwise they're leaving.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
Yeah, they're leaving. We had the migration statistics out today
showing that migration has moved quite a lot in the
past twelve months. In the twelve months to May this year,
there were one hundred and thirty nine thousand migrants who arrived.
That is down from one hundred and ninety one hundred
and eighty nine thousand in the previous twelve months. Meanwhile,
the people departing was one hundred and twenty four thousand,

(03:28):
which was down from one hundred and nine thousand the
year prior. So diving deeper into those numbers, we always
want to compare our celves to the Aussies. Right The
net migration loss consisted of forty seven thousand migrant departures
to Australia and seventeen thousand, three hundred migrant arrivals from Australia,
a net loss of about thirty thousand people over to Australia.

(03:48):
It's the biggest nest net loss we've seen since twenty twelve.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
Labour's Megan Woods says that.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
New Zealanders were leaving because of the cost of living
has gotten worse and they couldn't trust the government. But
David Seymour as ex disagrees with Megan Woods's assessment here.

Speaker 3 (04:02):
There's no question that we are undertaking a tough recovery
from a very disruptive event, which was COVID inflation, COVID
interest rates, and a recession that came from those high
interest rates. However, I'm not surprised that in the year
after the government changed, we still faced very tough conditions.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
So he goes on to make the point that the
data girls from January twenty twenty four to January this year,
so there is a fairly long lag period there, and
he blamed the last government for some of it, but
was actually putting a positive spin on looking forward.

Speaker 3 (04:36):
I expect that as time goes on, as we maintain
really careful spending as a government, as interest rates come down,
rents get lower, mortgage rates are coming down, there's a
lot more reasons for people to stay in New Zealand.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
So he says things are coming back round.

Speaker 4 (04:51):
Yeah, I think he's I think that's right and always
sort of has been, but it needs to happen by
the end of this year so that people feel it.
By this out of next year so that they can
get themselves re elected. Thanks, Thanks Jason. Good to have
you on Jason Wall's News Talks. It'd be Political editor.
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(05:14):
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