Latest election poll points to National
NZ’s secret vote
National leader Bill English and Labour leader Jacinda Ardern have gone headto-head in the final televised debate after a poll put National streets ahead of Labour in a remarkable change of fortunes.
But both leaders insisted the fight was still close, with the One News Colmar-Brunton poll showing the left and right blocs virtually tied.
It put National at 46 per cent, Labour at 37 per cent and their allies, the Greens, on 8 per cent.
That was radically different from a survey by the same pollsters last week that gave Labour a 4 percentage point lead.
On those numbers the power to anoint the next prime minister would rest in the hands of NZ First and its leader Winston Peters. But in a further twist NZ First fell to just 5 per cent putting it on the brink of falling below the MMP threshold.
If it slipped lower than that in Saturday’s election its survival in Parliament would hinge on Peters retaining his Northland seat.
The debate last night canvassed familiar campaign territory including tax, water, the airline fuel crisis, and health.
Ardern hit back angrily at National over its apparently successful attacks about its tax, which have included claims Labour would increase income taxes. That was based on Labour’s policy not to go ahead with the tax cuts National has passed into law, but which do not take effect until April 2018.
She said National had run a ‘‘negative campaign’’ around taxes.
But English disputed that and stood by his arguments including supporting his finance spokesman Steven Joyce’s claim there was a hole in Labour’s Budget.
Ardern said she could not believe English three days out from an election continued to mislead people like that.
She again rejected the idea Labour faced ‘‘zero budgets’’, saying it had $2.6b unallocated spending available over three years.
Ardern reiterated the Greens would get the ‘‘first call’’ on election night but that did not mean it is a ‘‘stitched up deal’’, leaving the option of a deal with NZ First open.
But English said he did not like the idea that Peters would decide who governed, and repeated his call for voters to ‘‘cut out the middle man’’ by picking one of the two big parties.
He had worked with Peters before and he could be ‘‘pretty challenging’’.
‘‘The obligation on all politicians is to form stable strong government,’’ he said.
Ardern said National had nine years to implement its policies, but had not done well.
However, English said the housing market was going faster than it ever had and the Government was cracking in to social issues and changing lives ‘‘one by one’’.
English said ‘‘we can make the positive choices now’’ because of the surpluses and now they had the money.
But Ardern said the country ‘‘could never afford poverty’’ and under National the situation had slid.
Brexit in Britain and Donald Trump’s election in the United States have revealed the polls can get it wrong, often dramatically. One of the reasons may be that some people feel too ashamed to admit where their allegiance lies – the ‘‘shame vote’’.
Is a vote for New Zealand First on election day the ‘‘shame vote’’ that could upset the outcome of this country’s general election? Has a ‘‘ chardonnay drinking, pinky-finger pointing media ’’, according to leader Winston Peters, put pressure on polled voters to conceal their intentions?
According to the polls, Peters could become the ‘‘kingmaker’’ – meaning whoever he allies with on election day, Labour or National, could become the next government.
The latest One News Colmar Brunton polls, released yesterday, puts National at 46 per cent, Labour at 37 per cent, the Green Party at 8 per cent and New Zealand First at 5 per cent. With National’s existing allies of the Maori Party, ACT and United Future, and Labour’s presumed ally
‘‘That’s why those polls are nonsense. They’re going to come out election day and then you’ll see what the results are.’’ Winston Peters
of the Greens, New Zealand First’s support would be required to tip either coalition over the 50 per cent mark to become the government.
When Peters visited Ashburton yesterday to announce his intention to replace the country’s emissions trading scheme (ETS) with a carbon budget, he chose the working class town fuming over water rights – a town that has gripes with both parties.
Speaking at Irrigation New Zealand’s conference, Peters slammed Labour’s policy to incorporate farmers into the carbon ETS.
‘‘It’s about owning our problems and meeting our challenges our way – not enriching some carbon trader in New York. Labour’s intention to sting the average farm $30,000 a year to shovel that overseas is in a word, dumb,’’ he said.
Peters has ruled out taxing water for farmers’ commercial use – one of Labour’s major campaign promises. It threatens to dismantle the possibility of a New Zealand First-Labour coalition after election day.
Peters is equally critical of National’s record on water in New Zealand, connecting the party with what he says is the Waikato Regional Council’s intention to give the rights to trade water to Waikato iwi Ngati Tuwharetoa, which both the iwi and the regional council deny.
But Peters’ presence in Ashburton runs deeper than the ETS. Peters is tapping into disgruntlement with National and Labour.
In April this year, the Ashburton District Council tried to sell off a property on the outskirts of the town to a company called NZ Pure Blue, allowing it to extract 40 billion litres of pure artesian water and sell it overseas. The council cancelled the deal at the last minute after significant protests.
In May, meat processor Silver Fern Farms laid off 370 workers from its Fairton abattoir, just outside Ashburton.
During his speech, and afterwards with an exclusive one-on-one with The Press, Peters had a simple explanation for whether some voters were afraid to admit they vote for New Zealand First: ‘‘Because from the media we get such a bad rap.
‘‘We’re constantly being put down and rubbished by certain ... chardonnay drinking, pinky-finger pointing media–all the time bad mouthing us and a lot of people feel scared.
‘‘That’s why those polls are nonsense. They’re going to come out election day and then you’ll see what the results are,’’ Peters said.
Peters said the ‘‘liberal media" put pressure on people to vote a certain way and, when the outcome went against the polls, the media tried to say those who supported the change were less intelligent.
‘‘When the polls came in when they were leaving Brexit they were utterly shocked, they couldn’t believe it. And then they started talking about the intellectual capacity of these people, putting them down so to speak.’’
When asked what his best achievement was over his 40 years in politics, Peters promised ‘‘the best is yet to come’’.