Labour just ahead in latest poll, after crash in support

Jacinda Ardern is still ahead in latest poll. Photo / Pool

Labour is only just ahead of National in the latest Taxpayers' Union-Curia poll, with just 0.9 points separating the parties.

Labour is on 36.2 per cent, falling 6.1 points. National is also down, but its support only fell 3.1 points to 35.3 per cent.

The big winners are the Greens and Act.

The Greens soared 6.1 points to 12.4 per cent, while Act climbed 4.6 points to 11.2 per cent.

Te Pati Māori is on 0.2 per cent, falling 0.8 points.

On those numbers, Labour would have 46 seats, governing with the Greens which would have 16.

National would have 44 seats, Act would have 14 seats and Te Pati Māori would have just one.

Jacinda Ardern remains ahead as preferred Prime Minister on 38.7 per cent, down 0.2 points. Christopher Luxon is on 26.6 per cent, down 1.9 points.

Winston Peters has climbed 3.7 points to 5.5 per cent, overtaking David Seymour who is on 4.4 per cent, up 2 points.

The polling period was March 2–7 and 14–15 (calling was interrupted for a few days due to Covid-19). The sample size was 1000 eligible New Zealand voters who were contactable on a landline or mobile phone selected at random from 20,000 nationwide phone numbers.

Late last week National pulled ahead of Labour in the latest 1News-Kantar poll for the first time in more than two years.

In that poll, the first since January, National surged 7 points to 39 per cent to take the lead - with Labour dropping 3 points to 37 per cent.

It was the first time National has been ahead of Labour since February 2020, a month before the Covid-19 pandemic tore through the world and New Zealand was plunged into lockdown.

Based on the 1News-Kantar poll result National could form a Government with Act if Te Pāti Māori fails to win an electorate seat and gets knocked out of Parliament.