Christopher Luxon: National leader on poll bump, Labour and PM down

Chris Luxon and National are up in the first 1 News-Kantar poll of his leadership, rising four points to 32 per cent - but he is unlikely to be celebrating as most of that support appears to have come from Act. 
It is the first time 1 News-Kantar (formerly known as 1 News-Colmar Brunton) has had National polling in the 30s since the 2020 election. 
Labour is down just 1 point to 40 per cent, with likely support party, the Greens, steady on 9 per cent. 
Act is down 3 points to 11 per cent, leaving the gap between National-Act and Labour-Green at 6 points, just two points narrower than the last poll, taken in early November when Judith Collins led National. 
This morning National Party leader Chris Luxon said his caucus was focused on building trust with the public and proving themselves as an alternative government. 
He told Newstalk ZB's Tim Dower the party needed to oppose the government strongly and propose new ideas. 
"We're off to a positive and encouraging start, we've got a lot more work to do, if we just do that job right, start to look like an alternative government, it'll be game on for 2023." 
Luxon said there were outstanding politicians in the National caucus with real world experience who were able to "take it to the government". 
On Harete Hipango, Luxon said recent actions she took over editing her Wikipedia page to remove controversies from her biography were silly and unwise but New Zealanders were much more interested in the cost of living and how to get hold of rapid antigen tests. 
He took issue at the Government spending saying it was up 68 per cent in five years and that it wasn't sustainable. 
"It's out of control and contributing to higher inflation. The only two things the Government has been running the economy with is increased levels of Government spending and lower interest rates." 
He claimed half the Covid fund had not been spent correctly citing the walking cycling bridge project. 
"We need to spend money, don't get me wrong, but we need to spend it in the right places." 
Te Pāti Māori and TOP were at 2 per cent, both up 1 point. NZ First was also at 2 per cent, but it had fallen 1 point. 
Eleven per cent of voters were undecided, up 2 points. 
Preferred Prime Minister rankings showed Jacinda Ardern at 35 per cent, down 4 points, her lowest result since becoming prime minister. 
Luxon polled 17 per cent, up 13 points. The large jump is likely because this is his first poll as leader. 
David Seymour is down 5 points to 6 per cent. 
Ardern reflected that some pessimism may have come from difficult decisions made recently. 
"When I reflect on the past six months, it has been a hard period for New Zealand and we have had to make some really hard decisions, but those are still decisions I absolutely stand by,…that ultimately mean we're on the best possible footing to take on this next wave," she told 1 News. 
Earlier Luxon described the result as "positive and encouraging". 
The poll showed voters were increasingly pessimistic about the economy, although not by much. Just under half of people, 49 per cent, thought that in the next 12 months the economy would be in a worse shape than currently, up 2 points. 
Twenty-two per cent of people thought it would be better, down 7 points, and 29 per cent thought it would be the same, up 4 points. 
The numbers align with other recent polls. 
In a Taxpayers' Union-Curia poll from January, Labour rose 1.7 points to 41.2 per cent with National at 33 per cent, up 0.4 points. 
Act was at 11.5 and the Greens 10.7. The Taxpayers' Union-Curia poll from December was also the first to show that National appeared to be taking support from Act, rather than Labour. 
However there has been a steady deterioration in support for Labour since the election. In 1 News polls, Labour had dropped from a high of 53 per cent in December 2020 to 41 per...

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