Kerre Woodham: It's just a poll

Well, the 1News Verian poll released last night shows that support for the coalition government, after seeing an operation for a few months, has dropped since election night. Hardly surprising. Well, to my mind. Anyway, clearly there were others who were simply gob smacked and amazed, but on to them in a moment.   

National, ACT, and New Zealand First have collectively dropped 5 percentage points. According to the numbers from that poll, and based on that poll, the left block would be able to form a government and New Zealand First would be out of Parliament. How many times have New Zealand first voters heard that? So many times, you'll be out of government dead and buried.   

The poll had National at 36%, down two points from the last poll in February, Labour jumped to 30%, up two. And the Green Party also increased by two to 14%. Te Pati Māori was on 4%, the same as the last poll. This is pretty much par for the political course. Labour showed a dip after it formed a coalition government in 2017 after three years of heading their coalition government. The first Colmar Brunton poll of 2020 saw National scraping into power and again New Zealand First out of Parliament in their polls. 

These snapshots are an indication of how people are feeling, both in themselves and around politics. Christopher Luxon was questioned about it this morning when he was on with Mike Hosking. He said, he didn't say it in so many words, but this is me. He said, it was hardly surprising that people were feeling grumpy. These are his words, he told Mike Hosking, we've got high inflation and high interest rates. People are sick of it. We're making some pretty tough decisions. We need to do that in order to fix the mess. We've been left New Zealand, as he said, would make a call into and a half years' time. And he went on with the usual spiel. Everyone in the coalition government is very focused on fixing the mess that they inherited, which is quite true. They've got a big job. They knew that going in. But people are going to need to see some results and they're going to need to see them soon.  

The shocking daylight robbery of a jewellery store over the weekend, all very 2020. The price of everything is still rising, uncertainty in the job market, there's a lot going on and not a lot of it is good for most people. It is not the government's fault, but it is their responsibility. And they are going to need to see some wins within the next three months and they are also going to have to watch their messaging. The accommodation entitlement, the snide tweets from ACT on Twitter over job losses in the public service, the weeks of fumbling and obfuscation from Melissa Lee handling the broadcasting portfolio, none of that has been helpful at all. Sacking Melissa Lee? Very helpful.  

I noticed that, I thought that was a really good move. I was up in Hokianga trying to avoid the news and I saw this and thought, damn it, what a great talk back day that would have been because I think that is really decisive, really good. She's clearly not up for the job. She can't handle it. Get. Go.  

Brutal, but a good sign to Ministers, perform, or you're out. A good sign to backbenchers that if you perform, you're in. I thought I thought that was a really good move, so the poll was taken over a week and ended on the day of Melissa Lee's sacking, so I'd be interested to know whether that will have an impact the next time around.  

But it's polls. You know, as every they're great to have a bit of a yarn about, great to give different media outlets their lead for the day or the night. People can have a yarn about them. Take the pulse, see where everybody's at, they count for nothing until Election Day. You can take some learnings out of them. You can think. OK, well, yes. No, we need to be careful here. We need to be more positive here.  

It will give Labour a bit of heart because they have been in the doldrums, and they need to reinvigorate themselves to bring themselves up to a decent opposition. But it's a poll. There's two and a half years to go. A lot can happen in that time.   

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