Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said he did not plan to discuss Monday’s gloomy polls in today’s caucus meeting.
Luxon was hit by two unflattering polls yesterday: the first, from the Taxpayers’ Union-Curia showed National fall 2.1 points to 31.8%, meaning Labour is now ahead. The poll showed a hung Parliament overall.
The 1 News-Verian poll had slightly better news for the coalition, which would still be re-elected on those numbers. However, Labour rose 4 points to 33%, just one point behind National, which was unchanged on 34%.
Luxon’s preferred prime minister score fell 3 points to 20, one point ahead of Labour leader Chris Hipkins on 19%. That is the lowest score for an incumbent Prime Minister since Jim Bolger in the 1990s, according to the pollster.
Luxon said he would not discuss these results with caucus this week, but the party still discussed internal polls.
“We discuss our internal polling from time to time with our caucus, which is very normal practice, but I’m not focused or polls or talking about myself, I’m focused on New Zealanders and making sure we have the right long-term plan in place.” Luxon said.
Luxon confirmed caucus was still receiving internal polls. When a leader stops their caucus seeing internal polling it is usually suggests they do not have confidence in their political position.
“New Zealanders understand we’ve gone through the biggest recession in the last 30 years. We’ve got a big Covid hangover as we’ve seen from the Treasury report last week, we’ve had some difficult challenging circumstances particularly since April with respect to the tariff situation.
“I think you’re seeing across New Zealand - get out of Wellington, you go to the South Island, the primary industries, go to Hawke’s Bay, you are seeing good recovery in those parts, but I acknowledge in places like Auckland and Wellington and urban environments it is still pretty tough,” Luxon said.
He said things like the InvestmentBoost tax credit and the infrastructure pipeline would lead to a recovery.
Senior Minister Chris Bishop said despite the grim polling there was “no talk” of changing the leader.
“That’s just silly. What we’re doing as a Government - New Zealand’s first three-way coalition government - is working hard to get the economy growing again after years of high inflation, high government spending and high debt,” Bishop said.
He said he would “not even entertain” the idea of a polling threshold at which point National would need to roll its leader. Bishop was one of the National MPs at the heart of a bid to replace then-leader Simon Bridges with Todd Muller in 2020.
Like Luxon, Bishop said that the economy had struggled to lift off since US President Donald Trump’s announcement of tariffs on Liberation Day in April. Treasury had been forecasting a decent economic recovery before April, but since then, it revised its growth forecasts downwards. The economy is still set to grow, but not as fast.
Live GDP estimates from the Reserve Bank suggest the next GDP print will show a quarter of contraction.
The threat of tariffs had caused businesses to hold back investment.
Bishop said the Government would not make “reactionary one-off decisions” to pump the polls.
“What we need to do is stick to the course of a long-term economic plan that would set New Zealand up for growth,” he said.
He suggested that some of the polling slump was because Labour had no real policy, beyond a promise to repeal things like Three Strikes, the reinstatement of oil and gas exploration, and the future Regulatory Standards Bill.
“It’s all easy for Chris Hipkins and the Labour Party to sit off to the side and say life should be better, [but] in their own words, they do not have any policy.
“Life’s easy in opposition when you have the luxury of not having any policy... they do not have any policy and they are not planning to release any any time soon,” Bishop said, referring to an admission from Labour finance spokeswoman Barbara Edmonds that the party did not have any substantive cost of living policy.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins was happy with the polls, saying Labour’s numbers had “grown significantly since the last election.
“We were at 26% at the last election, we’re now polling comfortably across the polls in the mid-30s,” Hipkins said.
Asked about Labour’s lack of policy, Hipkins said, “they [National] would definitely like more things to attack us on - that’s true”.
Hipkins said policy would be announced prior to the election, but he wanted to make sure he could deliver on what he promised.
A column by Vernon Small, a former staffer for Labour Revenue Minister David Parker, in the Sunday Star-Times reported Labour’s policy council had resolved to support a Capital Gains Tax as the preferred policy for the next election, beating out the other favoured tax, a wealth tax.
It now rests with Labour’s governing council and the Parliamentary side of the party to decide what to do with the policy council’s decision as the party puts its 2026 election policy together.
Hipkins has committed to campaigning on progressive tax reform, but said the tax policy was “not yet resolved”.
He said he “would not discuss the internal machinations of the Labour Party”, but said a “consensus is emerging”.
He said both a wealth tax and a capital gains tax were “on the table”, but would not commit to Labour’s traditional policy of excluding taxing any capital gains accrued on the family home.
“When we have a tax policy to announce we will announce it,” Hipkins said.
When asked again he said, “I’m not getting into that because we haven’t announced a tax policy”.
Eventually, Hipkins said, “I’ve always said taxing the family home shouldn’t be taxed, but I’m not announcing a policy that we haven’t announced”.
Hipkins has been reluctant to shape his party’s tax discussions by ruling various things in or out. Labour’s 2017 commitment to kick its tax policy to a tax working group was guided by the fact that any capital gains tax would exclude the family home.
In an earlier press conference, Hipkins would not rule out the Greens’ inheritance tax proposal, although he conceded it would be very unlikely Labour would agree to it.
Hipkins got into trouble with his own party in 2023 and 2024 for his “captain’s call” to kill the wealth tax proposal, a call some members believed was against party rules - although Hipkins and the party leadership dispute this.
Hipkins denied his reluctance to personally shape the tax discussion this time around is because he is being extra scrupulous in light of his previous troubles over captain’s calls.
“No,” he said, when asked.
“We’ll announce a tax policy when we’re ready to announce it, not because you keep asking questions about it,” Hipkins said.
Former National leader Judith Collins said she “didn’t even see” the polls.
“I’m just too busy doing my job,” she said.
Collins said this was “a really good coalition Government, I love being part of it”.
“I’ve been in a few Cabinets, let me tell you, and this is the most enjoyable for me,” she said.
“I find the Prime Minister’s leadership excellent, he just lets me get on and do the job,” she said.
Collins said Luxon was “absolutely” the right person to lead the Government.