A surprise result from an internal political poll: “Do Bomber’s attempts at talking up a Green-Labour bloc perception have any credibility?”
Margin of error: 0.00
Sample size: 1
As predicted here Martyn Bradbury has followed up claims that ‘internal poll rumours’ would support his rants with Latest Internal Polling – National in trouble.
The impact of the Memorandum of Understanding has triggered something deep in the electorate if the latest internal polling is anything to go by.
Obliging the mainstream media to change the way they report politics from a first by the post perspective to an MMP one changes the way voters see the Opposition.
That change seems to be happening at an alarming pace.
The mainstream media aren’t obliged to report things the way Bradbury insists and they haven’t changed how they report polls, which is poorly.
Bradbury claims to have “the latest internal polling” without disclosing:
- Who has done the polling?
- What was the question asked?
- What was the sample size?
- When was the polling done?
- What was the margin of error?
- Is Bradbury making things up?
So what result is Bradbury claiming?
The latest internal polling has National free falling to 44%, Labour at 31% and Greens at 12%.
That means the Labour-Green bloc is at 43% and National is on 44% – that’s a mere 1 percent lead and the speed of the turn around suggests something has snapped in terms of voter apathy.
Even if those are actual results from a credible poll they aren’t particularly surprising or much out of the ordinary. All three party results are within the ranges they have been getting over the past year.
Bradbury has been making unsubstantiated claims and has been trying to talk up a political revolution for several days, ignoring more realistic assessments of polling by the likes of Phil Goff and Michael Cullen.
Bradbury actually had both Goff and Cullen talking about polls on Thursday night on Waatea 5th Estate.
Bradbury:
Sir Michael isn’t the biggest change here the perception, we report polls like sports results, National 48, Labour 30, that’s an FPP view, and we are in an MMP environment. The combined bloc of Labour Green shows voters the election is a lot closer doesn’t it?
Cullen:
Well yes but not significantly different. I mean the poll out today, there was another poll from Roy Morgan which showed Labour up just one, Greens two, and they seem to be taking the votes off New Zealand First if you believe, ignoring the fact that it never works like that and polls bounce around.
Basically we’ve still got this gap between Labour Greens on one side and National on the other of about five to eight percent.
And it still comes down to they key issue which I think the Greens privately recognise…but it’s Labour’s got to win votes off National for there to be a secure change of government, and so far we’re not seeing that.
I mean for Labour to go up and the Greens and new Zealand First to go down it just means that the sort of the same not large enough plate of beans is being passed around between three eaters.
And it’s a fact that National keeps sticking around forty seven forty eight which is the thing that’s still got to be concerning for Labour and the Greens in particular because you can’t say that Winston’s locked into a change of government.
Anybody who thinks that doesn’t understand how Winston operates in any particular situation.
National has dropped into the low forties occasionally but also sometimes goes up into the fifties but as shown by the RNZ poll of polls “National’s average through this year has been between 44% and 48%, remarkably high for the midyear of a third term in government”.
Bradbury:
Phil there are lots of rumours about the new internal party polling…
Substantive polling usually takes longer than two days to do (this was two days after the MoU announcement). And Labour or the Greens woukld hand their internal poll results over to blabbermouth Bradbury? (Possibly if they thought he would do a job for them)
…that would suggest the blocs are even closer. If you gain momentum could we see level pegging before the end of the year?
Roy Morgan:
During September (2015) support for National fell 6% to 44.5% now just behind a potential Labour/Greens alliance 46% (up 8%).
During April (2016) support for National fell 3.5% to 42.5% – the lowest for two years since April – May 2014, now only 2% ahead of a potential Labour/Greens alliance 40.5% (down 1.5%).
Labour+Greens have fluctuated in and out of level pegging so it’s already an unsurprising poll outcome.
Goff:
Well I think that’s certainly what Labour wants to see. At the moment, ah, you know National has been reasonably consistent in the public polls, around forty seven, forty eight.
On public poll of poll averages, yes they have been consistently in the high forties but not in individual polls as shown by the above Roy Morgan results.
Ah in our own polling they have from time to time dropped as low as forty three percent and Labour on thirty six. Ah then you can see that a Labour Green coalition could easily become government at the next election.
If Greens poll high when Labour do, but as Labour goes up Greens tend to go down (they have been as low as 8% in public polls).
And ah in the midst of all of that of course you’ve got Winston Peters who has that balance of power. I doubt that he’d want to come in with, ah, let the left if the left was still polling well behind National.
What Labour has to do as Mike Cullen has said, it’s gotta win some of those light blue votes off National. That’s what changes an election.
And ah I think there are a lot of things in that environment out there, I’m thinking of housing, and I’m thinking of transport problems in Auckland. There are a lot of things out there that people are really unhappy about in a way that they haven’t been over the last two terms of the National Government.
So the environment is there.
If Labour and the Greens look like a stable coalition force, and not like the, you know the Kim Dotcom Mana Internet mix that was at the last election, then I think there’s a prospect that Labour and the Greens can win the next election.
That’s probably an unintentional dig at Bradbury who promoted the Kim Dotcom Mana Internet mix as the supposed game changer last election.
Neither Cullen nor Goff mentioned the Memorandum of Understanding.
Some interesting and probably widely shared measured views on polls and election chances by Cullen and Goff, but since then Bradbury has ignored most of that (what would they know?) and continued on his perception building exercise that ignores basic facts about past polls.
The only shock would be if Bradbury’s claims and promotions were taken seriously.
