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National party more popular than on election night: poll

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Sat, 31 Oct 2009 11:05a.m.

A year after the elections, the popularity of Prime Minister John Key and his National Government remains high.

The latest Herald-DigiPoll survey shows the Nats have more support now than on election night despite a series of controversial issues during the polling period.

In the survey the party had 57 percent support, 12 points higher than its election result of 45 percent.

The result would give National 73 seats in Parliament, well clear of the 60 it would need to govern, the New Zealand Herald said.

The paper said the rise in National fortunes continued in spite of its messy handling of the television rights to the Rugby World Cup, moves to open ACC to competition, and cuts in the health sector.

Labour struggled 20 points behind National on 32 percent, slightly lower than its election-night result of 34 percent.

Mr Key was the preferred choice of prime minister by 55.3 percent of respondents ahead of former PM Helen Clark on 10.6 percent, and her successor as Labour leader Phil Goff on just 6.2 percent.

Mr Key told the Herald the "pleasing" result was due to the Government focusing "on the issues that matter to New Zealanders".

The poll of 750 respondents was taken from October 15 to October 28.

None of the smaller parties reached the five percent threshold required to get seats in Parliament without an electorate seat.

Rodney Hide's Act party dropped to one percent, the same as NZ First.

The Government's other support party, the Maori Party, was slightly up on previous polls at three percent.

The Green Party slipped to 4.6 percent, compared with its election result of seven percent.

NZPA
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Comments

02 Nov 2009 11:43a.m.

cherie wrote:

Amazing how when a right wing party is doing well the comments are about

voters being mislead or stupid
or poll inadequate

How about the population in the main relaise what a state the place was in when this gov came to power and being the intelligent mass that most of us are we know that it is going to take time to fix up the last lots balls ups and that the global recession DID have an impact and that also will take a while to sort.
Oh yes and perhaps we like the way other parties are included in issues and not just run over in the rush to pass bills many of us disagreed with?

John Key is showing us that he is a statesman and not a dictator as was the previous leader Helen Von do aus I say Clarke.

01 Nov 2009 08:36p.m.

Kelly wrote:

What Ifs',

How do the polls hold any truth Mr redneck man or honourable John Key only MMP votes hold any truth. FFP party polling can't hold much truth you don't even know whose sitting where until the next election. And 'What If' some electrates aren't polled? that makes all polls suspect obviously. Why can't their be a large MMP poll showing all the 'What Ifs' possibilities.

And 'what if' MMP was reduced or tweaked to 3% from 5% to honour the diversity of our small constitutional voting rights. Then you'd find this no partism voting method might return the Labour/Greens coalition again. And then the skeleton KEY would get some scary results?

01 Nov 2009 05:10p.m.

David B wrote:

Phil commented that "The NZ Herald has long been a right wring [sic] News Paper." If the Herald is considered "right wing" in New Zealand I no longer need to wonder why personal responsibility, freedom and enterprise are disappearing from New Zealand.

01 Nov 2009 12:06p.m.

Vote for the toothfairy! wrote:

It never ceases to amuse me when a poll like this comes out. Regardless of who is in government, if the poll favours those in power the opposition whines about how 'grossly inaccurate' the polls are while the governments supporters praise it for being a 'true reflection of the public's mood'. If the poll favours the opposition the reverse is true. The reality is while much of the public whine and moan about what the government is doing as long as tomorrow is the same as yesterday they don't really give a damn what the government does.

31 Oct 2009 08:32p.m.

Denni wrote:

This poll, while not very representative due to it's small size, seems to show mainly that the general public don't actually pay attention to what the government is doing.

31 Oct 2009 08:32p.m.

Denni wrote:

This poll, while not very representative due to it's small size, seems to show mainly that the general public don't actually pay attention to what the government is doing.

31 Oct 2009 07:20p.m.

Phil wrote:

The NZ Herald has long been a right wring News Paper.

However, I do believe that the polls show strong support for the government. That does not mean they are right.

Indeed we have seen in the past 12 months

Health Cuts

Cuts to ACC

Broken promise on tax cuts. Some people are still stupid enough to believe them.

Asset sales

Erosion of employees rights.

Erosion of our future retirement scheme.

Basterisation of our ACC system.

However all the public see is JK on the David Letterman show parroting a script written by Lettermans producers.

National have spent millions on PR, and engaged one of the worlds best PR firms to keep them high in the polls.

They will be in for a long time, and I am sad to say by the time they will be finished with NZ, we will be a skeleton country with no ownership at the mercy of forign countries.

Privatised will be our water services. It failed in the UK

ACC

Prisons

Health (they are working on a proposal as we speak)

Cuts in core policing

and restricted entry in our Universities and techncal institutes. They did this back in the 90s causing a massive skill shortage that we have today.

I believe that National will win the next elections on a massive landslide because New Zealanders are sucked in.

31 Oct 2009 05:00p.m.

David wrote:

These polls are fairly inadequate, its well known that around 30 percent of voters are undecided and these polls never reflect that.

They poll and ask for a specific answer, some polytechnics and universities have polled voters themselves giving them the option of "havent decided".

Given the changes that are upcoming in ACC, the proposed increases in GST, the governments indecisive stance of funding super because they are little girls and wont take on grey power which as time progresses will just get stronger and stronger as their numbers increase I think National will struggle next election.

Last poll I remember seeing in early October gave National 60 percent so a three percent drop has occured, more of a drop will occur following any rise in GST.

The government keeps talking about delayed tax cuts but these are fictional, GST will be increased, ACC levies will be increased.. any proposed tax cut is a paper one only when you take into account all the extra taxes they are planning on taking from New Zealanders.