DigiPoll: Conservatives fail to make 5 per cent threshold - again

The Conservatives have again failed to make the 5 per cent threshold in the last DigiPoll survey before the election and would not make it not Parliament unless one of its candidates won an electorate seat.

And the poll suggests that Monday's so-called Moment of Truth organised by Internet Party founder Kim Dotcom has not had any pay-off in the polls for the Internet Mana alliance.

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The Conservatives are on 3.3 per cent, down from 3.8 per cent last week.

That will add to the woes of Conservative leader Colin Craig whose long-serving press secretary Rachel McGregor quit on him today without notice.

The Conservatives have not crossed the five per cent threshold in any of the major political polls this election and no poll has predicted they will an electorate seat.

The three highest profile candidates are Mr Craig in East Coast Bays, Christine Rankin in Epsom where National has effectively endorsed Act's David Seymour, and former Sensible Sentencing Trust chief executive Garth McVicar in Napier.

The failure of the party make five per cent would limit National's choices in government formation.

The full results will be revealed in tomorrow's Herald but the Internet Mana is on the decline in the poll, and is down to just one per cent and one MP in leader Hone Harawira. That is a 1.3 point drop in a week from 2.3 per cent.

Two weeks ago the party was on 3.5 per cent which would have translated to four MPs in Parliament, assuming Mr Harawira kept his Te Tai Tokerau seat.

But he is now fighting for his survival, running neck and neck with Labour rival Kelvin Davis.

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters. Photo / Dean Purcell

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters took the unusual step today of endorsing Mr Davis, while campaigning in Northland.

The Moment of Truth was an event at the Auckland Town Hall chaired by Internet Party leader Laila Harre at which American journalist Glenn Greenwald and former National Security Agency analyst Edward Snowden claimed that New Zealand's foreign intelligence agency, the GCSB, was engaged in mass surveillance of its citizens, a claim vigorously denied by Prime Minister John Key, and current and former heads of the agency.

It has since been suggested that the mass collection could be going on at the US end of the Southern Cross data link to the US.

Earlier in the day Mr Dotcom produced an email in the name of a Warner Bros executive which suggested Mr Key and Attorney General Chris Finlayson were preparing to grant Mr Dotcom residency in New Zealand to help the US get him extradited to the US on anti-piracy charges.

The email was declared by Warner Bros to be a fake.

Conservatives in the last six DigiPoll surveys: July 2014, 1.2 per cent, August 2.6, then weekly during the campaign: 3.3, 3.8, 3.8 and 3.3.

Internet Mana in the last six DigiPoll surveys: July 2.2 per cent, August 2.1, then weekly during the campaign: 3.4, 3.5, 2.3 and 1 per cent.

Watch Conservative leader Colin Craig's Herald Hot Seat interview