Poll Puts Left Bloc Ahead, But Only With Opportunity
The left bloc could form a government on the numbers in Monday's 1News-Verian poll, but only with the Opportunity Party. RNZ
The seat projection, which converts party vote into seats in Parliament, has National and Labour tied on 34 seats each. ACT has 14 seats and New Zealand First has 11 seats. 1News The Greens are on 19 seats, their best result, after a four-point lift in party vote. Opportunity holds seven seats. Both the left bloc of Labour and the Greens, and the right bloc of National and ACT, would need those seven seats to reach a majority.
On party vote, ACT was up two points to 11 percent. New Zealand First was up one point to 9 percent. 1News The Greens rose four points compared with August. Opportunity was down two points to 6 percent.
That 6 percent sits close to the 5 percent threshold, the minimum share of the party vote needed to enter Parliament without winning an electorate. Opportunity has no electorate seat to fall back on. A one-point move would decide its future in Parliament.
In preferred prime minister rankings, Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick gained two points to place third. She sits six points behind Labour leader Chris Hipkins. ACT leader David Seymour was also up two points, in party vote and preferred prime minister.
Opportunity scored 4.6 percent in the 23 June 1News-Verian poll. It then rose three points to 8 percent in the 13 August poll, clearing the 5 percent threshold for the first time. The September result is its second poll above the threshold, but lower than August.
RNZ reported on 15 September a possible hung Parliament, where no grouping can govern on its own, as Labour and National slumped. In that poll the Greens were at 14 percent, up four points, New Zealand First was at 13 percent, and ACT, the Greens and New Zealand First were all up. Opportunity was above the 5 percent threshold in that poll. The September Taxpayers' Union-Curia poll put the Labour-Greens left bloc on 53 seats and the National-ACT right bloc on 53 seats.
Swarbrick told RNZ the Greens would work with "whomever we have values alignment" with, which was true of Opportunity in some areas. Seymour told RNZ ACT was grateful for supporters but had "a long way to go" and had to keep working to earn votes. He said it was "very hard to know what you're getting" with the Opportunity Party. National has ruled out working with Opportunity. RNZ said it had sought comment from the Opportunity Party.
The broader context here is the maths facing the Beehive. Neither major party is close to governing with its usual partner alone. National on 34 and ACT on 14 does not make a government, even with New Zealand First on 11. Labour on 34 and the Greens on 19 does not make one either. That leaves a fourth party as the deciding vote.
In my view, the interest for Wellington watchers is less the headline left-bloc lead than the limits around it. The Greens have signalled openness to Opportunity. National has closed that door. ACT is sceptical. If those positions hold through the campaign, the right bloc has no path on this poll and the left bloc has one path, narrow and dependent on a party polling one point above the threshold.
A final point to keep in mind is threshold risk. At 6 percent, Opportunity is in Parliament. Below 5 percent, its seven seats disappear and the whole House is recalculated. Staff in all four parliamentary parties will have modelled both Parliaments. The difference is a change of government.
