The latest 1News-Varion poll results should come as a shock to the National party led three party alliance of New Zealand government. According to the poll results one of the three alliance partners, New Zealand First party is down two percent to 4 percent which is below the threshold needed to get into Parliament. National Party is down two percent to 36 percent and ACT now sitting at 7 percent, down one point from previous survey just two months ago. The combined outcome of these poll surveys suggest that if polls are held in New Zealand today, the current government will be out of power.
These results simply mean New Zealand First are out of Parliament and National Paty with 48 seats and ACT party with 9 would not have enough numbers to run the government. while the opposition led by Labour party with 40 seats, Greens at 18 and Te Pati Māori with 6 make enough numbers to form the government. These poll numbers should certainly be a warning signal for the coalition government which has been in power just under six months. Even Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is down two percent as preferred Prime Minister to 23 and taking Chris Hipkins up one point to 16 percent. Overall, the popularity of the coalition party leaders is also down by 1-2 percent enough to shake their confidence to run the government. On the other hand, the opposition camp appears to be charged with the outcome of the poll results consequently former Prime Minister Chris Hipkins calling it a wake-up call for the coalition government.
Opposition leaders have lept at the opportunity and making disparaging remarks on government decisions on their election promises. Prime Minister Luxon has retorted back on opposition parties saying there is a cleaning up hell of a mess from the previous government. There is no doubt in Prime Minister’s claim that previous government left a big financial mess for them to fix and that too in middle of a world economic crisis. When even the biggest economies of the world are reeling under recession one can only imagine the plight of New Zealand economy. People are still waiting to see some respite on cost-of-living crisis promise and the unemployment is creating new records with around 10,000 already lost jobs in this year so far. People are also disappointed on a yet another major failure of this government on law-and-order front, despite tall claims, it’s not showing any impact on ground. Blatant day light robberies, break-ins and lawlessness is still the order of the day. People are wondering if all the election promises were just the rhetoric and it’s all reflecting in the poll survey results.

Winston Peters, the most vocal member in the three-party coalition has opened another front for himself and for his government by his controversial statements at home and overseas. There are already so many pressing issues for him to address at home but Peters, as we all know him goes by his own fancies. He says and does what he thinks is right, without caring if it’s good for the government or the country. This government started to action on election promises in a time bound fashion, but they seem to be hitting mostly the wrong buttons with their unpopular and controversial decisions. People generally look for relief in their day-to-day matters whether its law and order, cost of living or employment issues. New Zealand’s health sector is crumbling for last many years and people are leaving country in hordes for greener pastures leaving a shortage of productive and skilled work force in the country.
Overall, the performance report of five months in power is quite dismal and coalition leaders need to change their modus-operandi to stay in the race. Undoubtedly the previous government left big holes in the economy and it’s not easy to fill these gaps without taking some tough cost cutting measures. So, unless this government creates new job opportunities and instil confidence in people by taking some strong relief measures for common man, this government is at the risk of losing steam midway through their term.
-Yugal Parashar