Labour takes 5 point hit in Roy Morgan poll   20 Aug 2015

Labour takes 5 point hit in Roy Morgan poll after Chinese buyers gambit

By Pattrick Smellie

Aug. 20 (BusinessDesk) - The Labour Party has taken a 5 point hit, dropping to 27 percent support from 32 percent in a Roy Morgan New Zealand poll taken earlier this month, the first by the Australian-based pollster since Labour sought to highlight what it said was evidence of disproportionate numbers of Auckland houses being bought by Chinese buyers.

The Green Party also took a 2 point fall to register 11 percent support, while the National Party saw a 7.5 point jump to 50.5 percent after slumping in two earlier polls as economic sentiment soured.

While poor economic news continued to accumulate during the early part of August, a period covering two sharp declines in the price of dairy commodities in global auctions, sentiment about whether New Zealand was heading in the "right" or "wrong" direction improved, with 54 percent of those polled saying the country was heading in the right direction, up 3 points from the previous poll, taken in late June and early July.

The latest poll was taken between Aug. 3 and Aug. 16 and randomly sampled the views of 892 New Zealanders. The Roy Morgan NZ poll has some history as being more volatile than some of the other four or five polls routinely produced publicly on New Zealand politics.

Support for New Zealand First rose 1 point to 8 percent.

The result, if translated to an election result, would give National a clear majority, claiming 52.5 percent of the vote, including its current supporters the Maori (1.5 percent), United Future (holding one electorate seat) and Act (0.5 percent) parties, against 46 percent for Labour, the Greens and NZ First, the last of which cannot be assumed to be a guaranteed ally of the centre-left parties.

The Conservative Party registered no support, down from 1.5 percent, after a torrid month in which the party leader and founder, Colin Craig, was ejected by his party's board, most of whom then resigned.

(BusinessDesk)

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