Brigette Morten: Political Commentator talks falling poll numbers for National and the coalition

The economy has set the mood for the latest political polling. 

Both the Taxpayers' Union Curia poll and the 1 News Verian poll show the left bloc has the numbers to form a government if an election was held today. 

Both also have Chris Luxon losing support in the preferred Prime Minister stakes. 

Political commentator Brigitte Morten told Andrew Dickens some of the Government's announcements on the economy won't be flowing through yet. 

She says a lot of them are also around economic growth, rather than moves that are going to affect households.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
To Mikey Schuman, the political editor of tv ANDS, he
was very excited on the telly last night and released
the results of a poll that give a lean to
the left block and as she says or said, spells
trouble for the coalition. But there was another one as well,
the Taxpayer's Union Courier poll reflected the same thing. It
sees Labor, Greens and Tapatimali able to reach a sixty
one seat target. Both of the poles do support for

(00:22):
the coalition has foremen One News has New Zealand first
teetering in their parliamentary seat in the coalition there at
just five percent the threshold. Fifty percent of those polls
said the country's going in the wrong direction. So political
commentator Bridget Morton is my guest this morning. Good morning
to you, Bridget, Good morning. So our labor pulling people
in or are National pushing people away?

Speaker 2 (00:44):
I think it's the economy that's making everyone seemed a
little bit depressed about what's going forward. So I think
that's indoubtedly one of the biggest factors, particularly in the
right track wrong track. I think also for National that
there has been a lot of distracting issues over the
last couple of months was building the major one, and
they want to be really talking about the economy and
what they're doing there.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Well, they are, because I don't know if you've noticed,
so far this year it's been growth, growth, growth, growth, growth, growth, growth.
There's been a couple of announcements. Could this be seen
as some sort of proof that their moves on the
economy so far in twenty twenty five have not been
motivating for voters.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
I think you've got to be careful that some of these,
you know, there's just all these announcements are very very
new and perhaps are not flowing through. A lot of
them are also about signally that they're focusing on that
economic growth passage opposed to necessarily moves that are going
to affect households. So you know, people are thinking about
how much their mortgage costs, how much it's cost and
get food on the table, and none of those announcements

(01:44):
are quite touching those things. Yet they're about getting those
economic settings right. So I think you're going to see
probably more of that household cost of living message coming
through as well.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
Not only that those they're not only very new numberso
miles away from the next election, So how important are
these numbers?

Speaker 2 (02:04):
Well, with polls, it's always about trends, and I think
that's what is more concerning is the fact that the
actually more voters are heading towards that wrong track right track,
that's going to be a headline number. I think looking
at whether or not labor conformer government is probably premature,
particularly when you've got to party molor you're making quite
radical bottom lines about commissioners with veto powers that actually

(02:27):
makes at less block coalition that pretty impossible at the moment.
So it's definitely something about whether or not they're actually
getting the narrative right. And I think, as you pointed out,
they are going economic growth, growth, growth, and that's what
they're going to be pushing really harder at the next
couple of months.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
Hey Bridget, thank you very much. And you're quite right,
Mikey Sherman. Just because you've got some software that can
actually do what a parliament might look like, you don't
have to start worrying about this two years out from
the election. That's just my own feeling on that. For
more from earlier edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live to
News Talks.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
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