Labour and the polls

“The Labour Comeback Begins”

“The Elections turning point?”

“Labour closes the Gap”

The above are just a couple of headlines and comments I’ve seen around various left wing blogs since the release of A Fairfax Media-Nielsen poll on July 19th showing that National’s lead over Labour had dropped from 24% to 16% in the latest poll. Fairfax Media themselves referred to the poll as “throwing a life line” to the struggling Government. Adding to National’s woe was the fact that John Key had slipped in the Preferred Prime Minister category to just 39%, the lowest rating he has received all year.

According to the narrative being set by the mainstream media and the various blogs, the reason for this turn around in Labours support is the success of various attacks they have been launching on John Key. In recent weeks Labour has hammered Key on Crosby Textor, Tranzrail, and National’s decision to open up ACC to private competition, a move which Labour claims will damage the system leading to higher premiums and endless law suits. The combined effect of these attacks has been to portray Key as a man reliant on his foreign spin doctors, unable to think for himself, and firmly in the pocket of big business. Such an image is a far cry from the kiwi boy made good, nice guy image National wants for their leader.

The second reason cited for National’s tumble in the poll is growing voter dissatisfaction with National’s unwillingness to roll out policy with any real meet behind it. The much hyped tax cuts, the backbone of National’s election strategy, are still being kept under wraps, with National unwilling to elaborate on how big they will be or how exactly the nation can afford them. Recent policy announcements by the Nats have bordered on self parody, with their policy statement for the multimillion outdoor recreation industry being released on a single A4 sheet of paper. National’s biggest policy announcement, of their much criticised ACC plans, was made by Dominion Post Journalist Vernon Small, who revealed that people in big foreign banking firms like Merryl0Lynch (who used to employ John Key) were being told of the plans to introduce competition (something that would net the insurance industry hundreds of millions of dollars worth of profit each year) while the New Zealand voter was being kept in the dark. Having a journo break the news of your buddy buddy relationship with foreign banks as a way to announce major economic policy is a terrible look.

Further evidence that National’s feet dragging on major policy was behind the shrinking gap between them and Labour came when 55% of respondents to the Fairfax Poll said they “wanted to see policy from National now” as opposed to the mere 35% who wanted to wait. This is worrying for National as that 35% is likely to be their “bed rock support”, those voters who would vote National no matter what. The type of people who still voted for National in 2002, its worst election defeat in decades. That means the 55% of people is bound to include many of those voters National has recently taken off of Labour. Key has cause to be worried that if his party is unable to provide any substantial reasons for those swing voters to stick around, they could swing back to Labour. The fact that a large proportion of undecided swing voters still exists is evidenced by the 28% of respondents to the poll who say they have not yet made up their mind about their preferred prime minister.

So yes, it’s a worrying poll for National that might give them cause to rethink a couple of things.

But it is the beginning of a stunning Labour comeback?

Far from it.

There are a couple of important things to keep in mind when looking at the poll results. First of all, as with all polls, this is just one snapshot of the population, taken at a specific time. Individual polls can be misleading, and we will have to wait for the next month’s worth of polls to be able to get a clear and accurate view of wither Labour really has closed the gap to the extent this poll suggests.

Even if this poll is accurate, the results aren’t as encouraging for Labour as they would appear at first. While it is true that Labour gained five points, National only lost 3 points. That means there are 2 points that are coming from a loss of support from another party. And what party is that?

Labours traditional preferred coalition partner, The Greens.

With poll ratings as high as they are, it is almost unthinkable that National will not get the most votes at this election. That doesn’t mean they will win however, it just means that as often happens under MMP they might get more votes than any single other party, but not have the parliamentary majority needed to govern. If National is unable to govern alone and ACT’s abysmal poll ratings (1 percent, ouch, so much for the party getting 6 or 7 percent huh?) continue then National could find itself being beaten by a broad left wing coalition of Labour, the Greens, The Maori Party, New Zealand first etc.

Labour will HAVE to form a coalition government to win the elections. What that means is we should be paying more attention to the combined ratings of the left wing voting bloc who could form a government (The Greens, Labour, Progressives, Maori Party and sometimes New Zealand First) and comparing it with the right wing voting bloc (National, ACT, United Future) since it is likely to be these voting blocs, rather than single parties that govern. When viewed this way, Labour taking 2 percent off the Greens doesn’t really help them at all, as the left wing voting bloc doesn’t really gain any support, its members just pass voters around between themselves. Had Labour been able to cannibalise 2 percent of ACT or United Futures vote, it would be a different story.

As it stands, National is the biggest party, and if they are unable to govern alone they will simply govern as a coalition with the other right wing parties.