MURIEL NEWMAN: Insights from the polls

With the 2026 General Election less than three months away, let’s examine what the polls are telling us about who’s going to be running the country after November 7 and what the key issues are.

New Zealand has four main political opinion polls. Two are quarterly run by Verian (formerly Colmar Brunton) for TVNZ and Reid Research for Radio New Zealand, and two are monthly - one run by Curia Market Research for the Taxpayers' Union and the other run by Roy Morgan, an Australian market research company that’s been polling New Zealand voter preferences since the 1990s. 

In addition, Talbot Mills Research conducts private tracking polls for the Labour Party, Freshwater Strategy provides political tracking data for The Post, and Horizon Research also provides tracking through on-line panels.

Since Roy Morgan is the only independent pollster, let’s look at what their July poll predicted. 

As far as Coalition parties are concerned, it showed National increased support by 1 to 32 percent, ACT dropped 1 to 8.5, and New Zealand First dropped 2 to 8.5. For the Opposition, Labour and the Greens were unchanged on 25.5 and 13.5 respectively, and the Maori Party dropped 1 to 2 percent.

The poll also indicated strong growth - from 3 percent to 10 percent - for parties outside of Parliament including The Opportunities Party (TOP), NewZeal, NZ Outdoors & Freedom Party (NZOFP), Vision NZ, the Conservative Party NZ, Women’s Right’s Party and the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party.

So, while the combined support for National, ACT and New Zealand First was eight points ahead of a coalition of Labour, the Greens and the Maori Party, the poll also showed support for TOP surging to 8 percent, giving a Labour-led Coalition the numbers to govern. 

In other words, the July poll shows TOP sweeping into Parliament with 10 seats to secure a victory for what would be the most radical left-wing coalition in New Zealand’s history.

When compared with the 2023 election results, Roy Morgan’s predictions show the Coalition would lose nine seats and the Opposition four. 

Within the Coalition, National takes the biggest hit, losing ten seats, while ACT drops one, and New Zealand First gains two — a clear sign that dissatisfaction with the Coalition is essentially disillusionment with National.

Regarding the Opposition, Labour would lose three seats, the Maori Party – badly damaged by tribal infighting – would also lose three, while the Greens, benefiting from Labour’s failure to renew itself after its 2023 defeat, would pick up two.

Broadly speaking, the support lost by the Coalition and the Opposition has gone to minor parties, predominantly TOP. 

To shed further light on the situation, Talbot Mills asked TOP supporters in July how they voted at the 2023 election: 23 percent voted National, 21 percent TOP, 18 percent Labour, 11 percent New Zealand First, 9 percent Greens, 6 percent ACT, and 5 percent the Maori Party. 

If 40 percent of TOP’s support is coming from centre‑right voters, the only conclusion is that the party’s left‑wing agenda has not been properly exposed. 

There’s a reason for that: the media’s favourable treatment of TOP — promotingit rather than scrutinising it — has turbo‑charged its rise in the polls. Some would argue this is deliberate, knowing that the simplest path to topple the Coalition is for TOP to clear the five percent threshold and enter Parliament. 

New Zealand’s left-leaning media have done this before, of course. In the lead up to the 2017 election, they relentlessly promoted Jacinda Ardern when she became Labour’s new leader to the point where she was able to defeat a popular National Government and become Prime Minister.

Judging by TOP’s meteoric rise in the polls, the mainstream media’s aggressive campaign to change the government appears to be working exactly as intended.

The only way to counter such an onslaught is to relentlessly expose TOP for what it stands for.

For instance, how many of those centre-right voters toying with TOP understand that the Party’s general manager and strategist is a former Minister in Jacinda Ardern’s Labour Government.

How many are aware that the candidate who is number four on TOP’s party list - and guaranteed an influential position in Parliament - is one of the authors of He Puapua, Labour’s plan to replace democracy with tribal rule by 2040. 

What do hard-working Kiwis feel about the fact that TOP intends turning New Zealand into a nation of beneficiaries through what is effectively the biggest election ‘bribe’ in Parliamentary history: “vote for TOP and we’ll give you $19,400 tax free each year!” 

And how do homeowners feel about the fact that they will be the ones paying for TOP’s handouts through a punitive plan to tax the land their home is built on to the tune of thousands, if not tens of thousands, of dollars a year! And what about farmers – do they realise the land tax they will need to pay will be even harsher?

The reality is that the promotion of TOP as a “kingmaker” that could work with either Labour or National, does not stand up to scrutiny. The centrist branding is simply a marketing ploy designed to make TOP’s radical left-wing agenda look moderate and lure in voters who haven’t looked closely at what the party is proposing.

TOP’s plan to tax homeowners, bring down property prices, introduce a universal benefit, strengthen net‑zero, decriminalise drugs, lift the age of criminal responsibility to 25, and back He Puapua is anything but centrist!

And the fact that National has already ruled out working with them after the election, means that centre-right voters should be under no illusion: a vote for TOP is a vote for Labour.

As the country counts down to the election, Reid Research attempted to find out how solid party support really is. Respondents in their July poll were not only asked which party they’d vote for now, but whether they would consider supporting a different party at the election.

Over half indicated they could be persuaded to switch their vote.  

When asked whether the party they supported today was the only one they’d consider voting for, the results indicated a base level of support for each party: for Labour it was around 16 percent, for National 13 percent, for the Greens and New Zealand First 4 percent, for ACT 3 percent, and for the Maori Party and TOP one percent.

Another interesting statistic on Coalition preferences came from April’s Curia poll which found 98 percent of ACT voters support the current Coalition, as do 86 percent of National voters and 83 percent of New Zealand First voters. A Labour-Green-Maori Party Coalition would be supported by 95 percent of Maori Party voters, 93 percent of Green voters, and 88 percent of Labour voters. 

And as far as TOP voters are concerned, the July Talbot Mills poll showed overwhelming support for Labour with 45 percent favouring a Coalition led by Labour, while only 15 percent opted for one led by National. 

A key question to emerge from the polls is why National has lost so much support.

Looking back to the 2023 election, National, ACT and New Zealand First were elected with a clear mandate to clean up the mess left by Labour and get the country back on track. Unfortunately, much of that opportunity was squandered, as National did not move boldly enough nor quickly enough. 

And while it is true that Labour’s legacy was far worse than expected, that the bureaucracy resisted change at every turn, and that international pressures made their task much harder, none of that excuses their failure to cut wasteful spending, reduce the size of the public service, and remove race‑based and identity‑driven policies from the state sector.

The Coalition is now paying the price: July’s Ipsos Issues Monitor Survey, which asked over 1,000 people in on-line research panels which party is best equipped to govern the country, indicated that Labour is considered the party most capable of addressing sixteen of the 20 most important issues facing New Zealanders - including the top five: cost of living, health, the economy, housing and unemployment.

The only issue in which National was considered more capable than Labour was crime, with the two parties considered equal in managing defence and foreign affairs.

The Green Party was considered the most capable of managing the environment and climate change, while the Maori Party held authority over Maori issues. 

When it came to how respondents rated the performance of the Government over the last 6 months, the results were dismal: only 24 percent gave them a high score (down from 27 percent in May), 32 percent gave them an averagescore, and 42 percent gave them a low score, producing an overall rating of 4.1 out of 10 - down from 4.2 in May.

As expected, the Ipsos survey highlighted the fact that the cost of living - primarily driven by soaring power bills, escalating fuel and transport costs caused by Middle East tensions, and a persistent increase in the price of food - is still considered the most serious issue facing New Zealand voters. 

According to Consumer New Zealand research, the cost of power has overtaken concerns about housing - including mortgages and rent - to become the second-biggest financial concern for New Zealanders, behind food costs. Many households report they are having to cut back on essentials to pay their winter power bills, with over two-thirds taking steps to use less power, such as delaying turning on the heating and wearing extra clothes. 

The problem is that Labour’s Net Zero policy has turned New Zealand’s affordable electricity system into a high‑cost, high‑risk experiment - driving up demand, pushing out reliable generation, and loading households and businesses with the bill.  

This week’s NZCPR Guest Commentator Electricity Systems Engineer Bryan Leyland sets out the four steps needed for the proper reform of New Zealand’s power system – the first of which is to abandon net-zero: 

“The payoff would be substantial: something in the order of $4–8 billion a year saved by abandoning net zero. This would give us a cheaper and more reliable electricity supply plus the associated economic boost with plenty left over for building our resilience against an ever-changing climate. It will also reduce living costs because net zero increases the cost of almost everything we buy. The cost of electricity and transport will certainly be reduced by a noticeable amount. A country that isn't rationing power during dry years, or subsidising the least efficient forms of solar generation, will prosper.

“Those people who still believe that if we reduce our emissions of man-made greenhouse gases, our climate will improve, are likely to object strongly to dumping net zero. What we need to point out is that nothing that New Zealand does can change the climate of the world – and hence the climate of New Zealand. They also need to understand that of the 195 countries that signed the Paris Agreement, only 18 have reported on progress. Fifteen out of the 18 admitted that they had failed to meet their targets. It's safe to assume that the remainder are also backsliding.

“All over the world, governments and others are beginning to realise the impossible cost and ultimate futility of net zero and many are resiling from it. New Zealand has an opportunity to set an example to the rest of the world!”

Given Consumer’s finding that more than half of New Zealanders say energy issues will influence the way they vote, the Coalition should follow the lead of others: the Conservatives and Reform in the UK, One Nation and the Liberal–National Coalition in Australia – and pledge to abandon net‑zero in favour of restoring reliable and affordable energy.

They say opposition parties don’t win elections, Governments lose them, so, with only five more sitting weeks before the House rises on 24 September for the election, the Coalition urgently needs some gamechangers!

This article was first published at NZCPR. Dr Muriel Newman established NZCPR as a public policy think tank in 2005 after nine years as a Member of Parliament. A former Chamber of Commerce President, her background is in business and education.