“Big ripples” are expected behind the scenes for the Labour Party following the latest latest 1News Kantar Public Poll, says 1News political editor Jessica Much McKay.
The latest poll has revealed that ACT has jumped in support, enough to be able to form a Government with National.
It means that if an election were to happen tomorrow, Labour would be booted out of Government.
“What it shows is that after five years in Government people are looking at their options,” McKay said.
“It’s winter, people are feeling the pinch when it comes to the petrol pump and prices are going up at the supermarket.”
She also believes that a major factor in the drop in support for Labour is their poor distribution of the cost of living payment, with the money going to many who weren’t eligible.
When it comes to National, McKay said that there will be sighs of relief in the party following a rough few weeks of scandal and mistakes.
It comes after leader Christopher Luxon posted a video online saying he was in Te Puke when he was actually on holiday in Hawaii.
Luxon and other National MPs have also come under fire for their personal views on abortion.
He maintained that should National come to power, there would be no changes to New Zealand’s abortion legislation.
McKay believes that this will give National a confidence boost leading into the election next year as they will have more freedom when it comes to coalition partners.
“They don’t want to be reliant on Te Pāti Māori, they’d rather just have ACT and on these numbers, they can do that,” she said.
While the big players continue to battle it out at the top end of the polls, it’s the ACT party are the ultimate winners of this most recent poll.
David Seymour’s party saw a 4% increase in support, giving themselves a potential 14 seats in Parliament.
“I think what it shows is that people aren’t feeling that happy with Labour and National, ACT is one of them as well as some other minor parties,” McKay said.
ACT would also gain a lot of confidence as these new numbers give them a significant amount of power to sway policy
When it comes to the Green Party, McKay thinks that the loyalty of their supporters is what led to their numbers being relatively unscathed following James Shaw being ousted as co-leader.
“[9%] is a relatively strong number, especially when we’re not in an election year,” she said.