Election 2023: Poll shows bounce-back for Labour, bad news for National’s Christopher Luxon and NZ First

Labour bumped up three points to overtake National again in the latest Talbot Mills poll, taken over the first week of June, a result the party will hope shows some approval for the Budget’s offerings and limited long-term damage from the Stuart Nash and Meka Whaitiri dramas.

The poll has Labour up three on 36 per cent and National down one on 35 per cent. Act is up one on 11 per cent, the Greens down two on 7 per cent, and Tē Pāti Māori on 3.65 per cent - slightly down but holding up well, after getting an initial bounce in the wake of Meka Whaitiri’s dramatic exit from Labour to join Te Pāti Māori.

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins also benefited in the poll, rising back up to 38 per cent as preferred PM - a six-point rise which brings him back to near his honeymoon level of 39 per cent in January.

National leader Christopher Luxon dropped to his worst result in the Talbot Mills series, down to 22 per cent, while Act leader David Seymour held steady on 12 per cent - well ahead of any other small party leaders.

The poll is one of Talbot Mills’ monthly polls for its corporate clients. The company also does Labour’s internal polling.

It will be a bit of morale boost for Labour to overtake National again - although the results are different to the rival Curia Taxpayers’ Union poll, taken at the same time. That showed National was holding on 36 per cent and Labour had dropped one to 33 per cent, while Hipkins’ favourability score had dropped.

Curia also polls for the National Party.

New Zealand First usually polls better in the Talbot Mills than other polls, but it was down to 2.9 per cent and leader Winston Peters was on just 1.1 per cent as preferred PM - behind both Te Pāti Māori co-leaders Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, and both Green Party co-leaders James Shaw and Marama Davidson.

The Talbot Mills result shows the battle between left and right remains very close: the National Party-Act grouping got 46 per cent, while the Labour-Greens-Te Pāti Māori group got 47 per cent. Its May poll had the two sides neck and neck.

The Talbot Mills poll was taken from May 30 to June 6 - about a fortnight after the Budget, while the post-Budget announcements were still flowing.

The suspension of Michael Wood as Transport Minister over his late disclosure and failure to sell his shares in Auckland Airport broke on the last day of the polling period. The recovery in Labour’s support will give it some hope that it is recovering from the hit of Whaitiri’s defection to Te Pāti Māori, and Hipkins’ sacking of former minister Stuart Nash for emails he sent to donors setting out Cabinet deliberations over a rent relief scheme during Covid-19.

The poll of 1001 respondents was taken from May 30 to June 6 and has a margin of error of +/- 3.1 per cent.

Claire Trevett is the NZ Herald’s political editor and a life member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery. She started with the Herald in 2003 and has been a political journalist since 2007.