The Labour leader’s approval has dropped to 35% as the country wrestles with the Omicron Covid variant and rising inflation
The polling took place in a time of turmoil and change in New Zealand’s Covid response, as the country reckoned with its first cases of Omicron spreading in the community, and on the tail end of a small but persistent Delta outbreak. On Thursday, the country reported 34 new cases of Omicron – but with cases cropping up at weddings, airports, a music festival and at least three cities, officials expect the country to be detecting 1,000 a day in the coming weeks.
“When I reflect on the last six months, it has been a really hard period for New Zealand and we have had to make some really hard decisions, but those are still decisions I absolutely stand by.” The poll also found many New Zealanders were feeling pessimistic about their economic outlook – 49% thought the economy would get worse, versus 22% better. That metric has undergone a steady decline in economic optimism over the past two years, and comes as an increasing portion of New Zealanders are locked out of a runaway housing market, and facing rising living costs alongside relatively stagnant wages. On Thursday, inflation hit a 30-year high of 5.9%.
Support for the Labour party more broadly was holding steady at 40%, down one point. With that result, Labour could still form a government with traditional coalition partners the Greens, who held 9%. The biggest shifts came on the right, where the National party, under new leadership, had clawed back some support from the libertarian-right Act Party, which had flourished while the centre-right floundered. National was up four percentage point to 32%, whereas Act was down three, to 11%.
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