Budget 2025: National and Labour lose ground in latest 1News Verian political poll

Labour's Chris Hipkins and National's Christopher Luxon go head to head in another national poll. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Both Labour and National have taken a hit in the latest political polling by 1 News-Verian.

But, if an election were held today the current coalition trio of National, NZ First and Act would still have seats - 63 - to form a government.

The 1News-Verian survey, released tonight, was taken soon after the release of the Government’s second Budget, which included a $6.6 billion Investment Boost policy, halving the Government’s KiwiSaver contributions and raiding almost $13b set aside for pay equity settlements.

National has taken a 2 percentage point hit, sitting at 34%.

Labour has taken a bigger hit, dipping 3 points to 29%.

The polling has Act, whose leader David Seymour has just taken over as Deputy Prime Minister, at 8% – a 1-point drop.

New Zealand First is up 1 percentage point to 8% – its highest result in the poll in around eight years.

The polling has the Green Party on 12%, up 2 points. Te Pāti Māori is up 1 point at 4%.

The 1News-Verian survey of 1002 eligible voters was taken from May 24 to May 28.

Who could form a government?

These numbers would give National 43 seats in the House, and Act and New Zealand 10 seats each. Together, that’s 63 seats, enough to form a coalition if an election were held today.

The 1News-Verian polling leaves Labour with 37 seats, the Greens with 15 and Te Pāti Māori with six – a total of 58 seats.

In the preferred Prime Minister stakes, support for National leader Christopher Luxon is steady at 23% – no change from the previous April poll.

Labour leader Chris Hipkins is at 19%, down 1 point.

NZ First leader Winston Peters sits at 6%, also a 1-point drop.

Green Party leader Chlöe Swarbrick and Act’s David Seymour have both jumped a point to 5% and 4%, respectively.

The polling also has Finance Minister Nicola Willis in the preferred Prime Minister stakes at 1%.

The last 1News-Verian poll, released on April 7, had National, Act and NZ First with enough support to secure 64 seats and form a government. The three Opposition parties could only compile 58 seats.

National had come in at 36%, Act on 9% and New Zealand First on 7%, then its highest result in the poll in nearly eight years. Labour was on 32%, the Greens on 10% and Te Pāti Māori on 3%.

Luxon and Hipkins had only been separated by 3 points in the preferred PM stakes, Luxon leading his Labour opposite 23% to 20%.

The Herald last week published a new Talbot Mills Research poll that found 33% of respondents thought the Government’s Budget this year would be bad for the country.

The poll of 700 people found just 22% thought the Budget would be good for New Zealand.

Talbot Mills Research, which runs polls for corporate clients as well as an internal poll for the Labour Party, surveyed people between May 23 and May 29.

Participants were also asked whether they thought the Budget would be good for the New Zealand economy, bad, or would not make much of a difference. The results showed 30% believed it would be bad for the economy and 27% thought it would be good.

In terms of whether they thought the Budget would be good for them personally, bad, or make not much of a difference, 34% of respondents said it would be bad and just 9% thought it would be good.

Talbot Mills Research director David Talbot said the results were the worst of any government in his outfit’s 30 years of polling reactions to the annual budgets.

“Across all three dimensions: overall, economic, and personal, it was judged by Kiwis to be net negative, and in each case the worst since our tracking began in 1996.”

Julia Gabel is a Wellington-based political reporter. She joined the Herald in 2020 and has most recently focused on data journalism.