Little's strong start reflected in poll

When asked how well the two main leaders were performing, 45 per cent said Labour leader Andrew Little was performing well. Photo / Jason Oxenham

Support for both Labour and National has gone up in the latest TV3 poll, the first major poll of the year, which reflects similar results to the Herald DigiPoll December survey, the first major poll after last September's election.

And new Labour leader Andrew Little received a reasonably favourable endorsement from voters as a capable leader in the 3News poll conducted by Reid Research.

Labour is up by 3 points from 26.1 per cent in the last Reid Research poll before the election to 29.1 per cent today (Labour won 25.13 per cent of the party vote at the election).

National is up by 3.1 percentage points from 46.7 per cent in the last Reid Research poll to 49.8 per cent today (National won 47.04 per cent at the election).

It is not unusual for smaller parties to start falling back soon after an election at the expense of the two bigger parties.

Given the profile that the new Government and the new Labour leader have had since the election, their upward trend is not surprising.

Compared to TV3's last poll, the Greens are down by 3.7 points from 13 per cent to 9.3 (election result was 10.7 per cent); New Zealand First up by one from 5.9 to 6.9 (8.66); the Conservatives are down by two, from 4.7 to 2.7 (3.97); no change in the Maori Party's 1.3 per cent (1.32); or United Future's 0 (0.22); Act is down 0.1 from 0.3, (0.69) and Internet Mana is down by 1.1 from 1.7 to 0.6 (1.42).

Neither the Conservatives nor Internet Mana made it into Parliament.

When asked how well the two main leaders were performing, 45 per cent said Mr Little was performing well and 17 per cent said poorly.

For the same question about Prime Minister John Key 63 per cent said he was performing well and 24 per cent said poorly.

When asked if Mr Little was a capable leader, 54 per cent said he was, which is the highest result for a Labour since Helen Clark was Prime Minister. The last rating for Mr Little's predecessor, David Cunliffe, was 43.4 per cent.

Mr Key is rated as a capable leader by 81 per cent.

In the preferred Prime Minister question, Mr Key is up by 3.9 points to 44 per cent in the TV3 poll, and Mr Little debuts at 9.8 per cent.

Mr Key has been National leader for eight years and Prime Minister for five. Mr Little has been Labour leader for two and half months.

The Herald Digipoll survey in December, the first major poll since the election, Labour had risen by three points compared with DigiPoll's last pre-election poll, and National had risen by 2.2 points.

Mr Little was widely seen to have gone nowhere near matching Mr Key last week in their respective first major speeches of the year.

But Mr Little made a strong start to his leadership in the House last year, accusing Mr Key of using his staff to run "a smear machine" from his office and, memorably, told Mr Key to "cut the crap" when he denied it.

The 3News-Reid Research poll was conducted between January 20 to 28. It polled 1000 people and has a marking of error of plus or minus 3.1 per cent.