Sun, 29 Nov 2009 8:41p.m.
Labour leader Phil Goff
Labour leader Phil Goff's personal popularity has taken a dive, a new poll shows.
The TV One Colmar Brunton poll showed little change in the ratings for the two large political parties but put Mr Goff's ranking for preferred Prime Minister at 5 percent. That's down 4 points on the organisation's last poll in September.
Prime Minister John Key was even more popular than before -- up 4 points to 54 percent support.
However Mr Goff's poor result does not take into account his nationhood speech last week, in which he accused the National government of reopening racial wounds and of "pork bone" politics resulting in "shoddy" and "cynical" deals.
Former National leader Don Brash scored a sharp rise in the polls after his Orewa speech, where he talked about one law for all, which Mr Goff's speech has been compared to.
The poll put support for National on 53 percent, down 1 point, and Labour on 31 percent, down 2 points. The Greens got a significant 3 point boost to 7 percent, the Maori Party were steady on 3 percent and ACT was down a point to 2 percent. Parties need a minimum 5 percent to be elected unless they hold an electorate seat.
The poll also found 77 percent thought Maori MP Hone Harawira's recent "white motherf...er" email was racist and 69 percent thought he should leave Parliament.
The poll of 1000 voters had a margin of error of 3.1 percent. It was conducted between November 21 and 25.
NZPA
