New polling data has sent a jolt through New Zealand's political landscape, revealing that the Labour Party's support has dipped to levels not seen since the Great Depression era. The Taxpayers' Union-Curia poll, released this week, puts Labour at just 28.4%, a figure that raises serious questions about the party's trajectory ahead of the next election.
This result is even lower than Labour's catastrophic 2023 election performance, when it scraped together just 26.9% of the vote, the worst showing for any major governing party in the MMP era. For context, you would need to travel back to the 1930s to find a comparable slump for a party that had recently held the reins of the Beehive.
What does this poll mean for Labour's standing?
The numbers paint a stark picture of a party still grappling with the scale of its 2023 rejection. While leader Chris Hipkins appeared to be clawing back support earlier in the term, with some polls even suggesting Labour could return to office, that momentum has now evaporated. As National ramps up its tax-focused attacks and voters begin tuning into election mode, Labour's hard-won gains have been unwound.
Most other polls, barring the quirky Roy Morgan, don't place Labour quite this low, but the trend is clear: support is either flatlining or sliding. This negative momentum, arriving just as the party should be gearing up for a campaign, is nothing short of devastating for morale.
Will Labour roll Chris Hipkins as leader?
The question on everyone's lips is whether Labour will pull the leadership lever and replace Hipkins. The short answer is: probably not, at least not yet. There are two key reasons for this.
First, Labour has shown less appetite for internal bloodletting than its rival. As the joke around Parliament goes, National exists primarily to win elections, while Labour, for all its faults, tends to be more forgiving of its leaders. The party's recent history under Jacinda Ardern and Hipkins suggests a reluctance to repeat the leadership churn of the 2008-2017 wilderness years.
Second, there's little strategic advantage for an ambitious MP to strike now. If Labour is destined to lose the election, the smarter play is to let that happen and then contest the leadership in the aftermath. The only compelling reason to move early would be to get ahead of potential challengers like ex-MP Michael Wood, who is eyeing a return in Mt Roskill.
Why the polls are so divided
Adding to the uncertainty is the vast divergence between polling firms. Labour's internal pollster, Talbot Mills, reportedly has the party sitting in the low-to-mid-30s, a far cry from Curia's 28.4%. A leaked corporate poll from early August put Labour at 34%, a massive 6.2-point gap from Curia's figure for the same period.
Political parties are naturally wary of rival pollsters' methodologies, and Labour has previously dismissed Curia results as rogue. Interestingly, it hasn't done so this time. If today's result had come from Talbot Mills, the conversation about Hipkins' leadership would likely be far more intense. One of these polls is probably right, and the other is probably wrong. There's even a chance both are off, with Labour's true support somewhere in between.
Is National's tax campaign crossing the line?
If Labour is genuinely polling this low, much of the credit belongs to National's aggressive tax attacks, which Labour argues are misleading. The campaign, which claims Labour would introduce a raft of new taxes, runs dangerously close to being a lie. In an MMP environment, no major party can definitively rule in or out the policies of its coalition partners, but that nuance is lost in National's blunt messaging.
These attacks have been dubbed the nuclear option, and like their literal namesake, the most frightening aspect isn't the initial strike but the retaliation. National has shown how effective a misleading campaign can be, but it has also handed Labour every incentive to fight back with the same tactics. The question now is whether we're on the verge of a US-style, fact-free election in Aotearoa.
What happens next?
National may be celebrating a quiet victory tonight, but they should be worried about the blowback. If Labour decides to match fire with fire, the campaign could descend into a race to the bottom that serves no one, least of all the voters who deserve a genuine debate about the country's future.
For now, Labour appears to be in watch-and-wait territory. The party will likely ride out this poll, hoping that more frequent polling as the election nears will paint a more accurate picture. If those polls confirm the slump, the leadership chatter will intensify when Parliament returns from recess later this month. If not, Hipkins may yet have a fighting chance.
Either way, this moment is a wake-up call. Labour cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of 2023, and National cannot assume its current strategy will hold up under scrutiny. New Zealand deserves better than a race to the bottom; it deserves a campaign built on ideas, integrity, and a vision for a fairer, greener, and more inclusive future.