Claire Trevett: Poll was verdict on Judith Collins' longevity rather than race

The three-point strategy National Party leader Judith Collins has been running to try to add some oxygen into her support levels could be summed up as desperate times, desperate measures, belly flop.

The latest Newshub Reid-Research poll would have dashed any hopes Collins had that her claims of a secret "separatist" agenda would be a circuit-breaker for her.

But the poll probably says more about voters' conclusions about Collins' longevity in her job than her recent campaign claiming the Government is quietly introducing separate systems for Māori.

The party votes in the poll have barely shifted in the poll since the election.

The largest shift was in Collins' own ratings as preferred Prime Minister.

Some have taken the dramatic slump from 18.4 per cent to 5.6 per cent as a thumbs down for that race-based campaign.

It certainly wasn't a thumbs up: but it is just as likely the poll simply reflected yawning indifference to Collins and the conclusion that Collins was unlikely to stay in the role for long.

But the last Newshub Reid-Research poll was last October, the week before the election. It is impossible to compare the state of play in the final week of an election campaign with the doldrums of the first year in a Parliamentary term.

In that regard, comparing the results with the 1 News Colmar Brunton poll are more accurate – and that poll, too, has had Collins dropping well into single figures.

The poll certainly showed people were not shifting their votes to National on the basis of Collins' recent utterances.

Those issues have given Collins oxygen – but it certainly didn't give her the helium she needed for lift-off.

The reason for that is two-fold. The first is that voters have more pressing concerns on their plate. In addressing those, opposition parties are irrelevant.

The second is that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has their trust. Collins' "secret agenda" claims have been no more fruitful than were Labour's attempts to paint former PM John Key as having a secret agenda.

Ardern's explanation thus far for the issues Collins has raised have been suggestions or recommendations from external advisors, or government departments.

The Government has had other priorities – such as, oh, Covid-19 and poverty and housing – and has not yet had time to consider them.

Asked to choose to believe either Collins or Ardern, the vast bulk have chosen Ardern.

That's not to say Collins is completely boxing shadows.

They are issues the Government eventually needs to answer to.

Labour has gone further on some issues than it campaigned on.

Removing a public veto over Māori wards on councils is one example and the health reforms are another – especially the extent of the "veto" power of the Māori Health Authority.

But the ones the latest poll result will worry are Collins and the Act Party. There was a slight lift for National, and a slight drop for Act.

In terms of reclaiming lost National voters, the race issue was always going to be of more appeal to those National voters who went to Act in 2020 than those who went to Labour.

Act was clearly aware of that: it was Act leader David Seymour who first raised the He Puapua report. After Collins effectively claimed it as her own issue, it sparked something of a race to try to outdo the other in uncovering another example to thunder outrage over.

The trouble for National is that it is the voters who went to Labour who they need to get back, not those that went to Act.

And those voters have shown no appetite to return, despite the theory they went to Labour for one day only to try to lock out the Greens.

Ardern's hold on those voters has proved more resilient than National expected.