Latest Roy Morgan Poll – the Left has a Sh*tload of Work ahead of it!

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The latest Roy Morgan poll is not good news for the Progressive Left, with National regaining much the the loss it suffered in the last few polls, and up 3.5 percentage points since January figures. Labour and the Greens have dropped 0.5 and 1.5 percentage points, respectively.

In the chart below, the most recent Roy Morgan poll (January 20 – February 2, 2014) is compared to a recent TV3-Reid Research poll and previous Roy Morgan poll (6 – 19 January 2014);

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	Roy  Morgan poll 6 – 19 January 2014	TV3 – Reid Research Poll 2 February 2014	Roy Morgan poll – 20 Jan – 2 Feb 2014
Right Bloc
National	43.5%	44.05%	47.00%
Maori Party	2.00%	1.00%	1.50%*
Conservative Party	2.50%	2.10%	1.50%
ACT	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%
United Future/Peter Dunne	0.50%	0.00%	0.00%
Left Bloc
Labour	33.50%	33.50%	33.00%
Greens	12.50%	12.40%	11.00%
Mana	0.50%	0.30%	1.00%
Wild Cards
NZ First	4.00%	5.70%	4.50%
Internet Party	–	–	0.50%

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For the First time, Kim Dotcom’s Internet Party is registering in a Poll. At 0.5%, it polls higher than both United Future and ACT. But unless it wins an electorate seat (unlikely), it will not gain representation in Parliament.

Tracking Roy Morgan’s polling;

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In their formal press release, Gary Morgan said,

“The resurgence for National comes as Prime Minister John Key has raised the possibility of a referendum on changing the New Zealand Flag coinciding with this year’s election. Key made the point that Canada, which changed its national flag in 1965 to a maple leaf, had never regretted its decision to remove the Union Jack.

“However, despite this week’s improvement for National the latest Roy Morgan New Zealand December Quarter employment statistics show 19.8% (up 2.7% since the September Quarter) of New Zealanders are unemployed or under-employed. A total of 519,000 New Zealanders (up 69,000). For John Key and National to retain their current lead and stand a good chance of re-election at the end of the year, further reforms are needed to reduce labour market regulation and provide real opportunity for the more than half a million New Zealanders looking for work or looking for more work to find gainful employment.”

Which just goes to show; never under-estimate politicians and their tax-payer funded media strategists ability to manipulate the public.

On a discordant note, Gary Morgan’s reference to “further reforms are needed to reduce labour market regulation” is odd, considering that New Zealand’s labour laws are amongst the most de-regulated and liberal in the OECD. It would be hard to see what Morgan is referring to other than doing away with the minimum wage; all remaining health and safety laws; and banning Unions entirely? Bizarre.

Note: Taken between 20 January and  2 February 2014, the poll was conducted through  calling 846 respondents, both on landline and mobile telephones. Currently, Roy Morgan is the only polling company that calls cellphones as well as landlines.

The previous Roy Morgan poll was conducted by calling  1,509 respondents, As such, the lower figure of respondents may be a factor in National’s “improving” fortunes? (Or else, people just liked talking about the flag…)

One thing is for certain;  Labour, Green, and Mana supporters  are going to have to work bloody hard to effect a change in government this year. It’s going to be a tough year!

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References

NZ Parliament: Unemployment and employment statistics: the Household Labour Force Survey in context

TV3: 3 News-Reid Research poll shows Peters as kingmaker

Roy Morgan: National (47%) regains lead from Labour/ Greens (44%)

Previous related blogposts

Census, Surveys, and Cellphones (Part rua) (12 December 2013)

Roy Morgan Poll: Unemployment and Under-employment up in New Zealand!

TV3 Polling and some crystal-ball gazing

Latest Roy Morgan poll bad news for National

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Above image acknowledgment: Francis Owen

This blogpost was first published on The Daily Blog on 7 February 2014.

* The original blogpost on The Daily Blog contained an erroneous entry for The Conservative Party under the “Roy Morgan poll – 20 Jan – 2 Feb 2014” category. The actual figure is 1.5% (as shown here), and not 2.5%. My stuff up. (Hat-tip: Weka)

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