A new Fairfax Media-Ipsos poll published on August 15 again had Labour at a basement rating - 22.5% - and National cruising at 55.1%. But the poll-of-polls scarcely budged because that poll replaced a July Fairfax poll with closely similar readings.
Still, Labour's average, at 27.1%, while off its mid-July lows, remained dire, though the interviews for the poll straddled Labour's campaign launch on August 10. Labour will worry whether other polls due in coming days replicate the Fairfax.
National's average did not change from its 50.3% in last Saturday's averages. The issue for National is whether there will be any fallout from Nicky Hager's book accusing it and associated bloggers of "dirty politics". The Fairfax poll and those due next week are unlikely to answer that because most, if not all, of the interviewing will have been before the book launch.
Poll performance of National vs Labour vs Greens (2014) Graphic: RNZ
The Fairfax poll lifted National's long average lead over the Labour-plus-Greens combined to 11.5% from 10.6%. The Greens' average dropped slightly 0.3% to 11.7%.
Poll performance of National vs Labour and Greens (2014) Graphic: RNZ
Internet-Mana is drawing crowds to its rock-show meetings, at one of which a controversial chant denigrated Mr Key. But up to early August there was no great boost in published polls: its average then was 2.3%. The Conservatives were at 2.0%, the Maori party 1.0%, ACT 0.6% and United Future 0.2%.
Poll performance of NZ First vs Internet-Mana vs Conservatives (2014) Graphic: RNZ
Readings of consumer confidence remain high. TV1 Colmar Brunton in late July registered 54% saying they expected to be better off next year and 24% worse off. But the positive reading was down from 62% in February-March. As noted last week, the Roy Morgan right-track-wrong-track reading May also have peaked.
Graphic: RNZ
(The POLLof POLLS is an arithmetical average of the four most recent major published polls* and will appear in a special series of election columns by Colin James every Saturday on radionz.co.nz until after the election on September 20.
*The polls from which the last four at any one point are drawn are: TV1 Colmar Brunton, TV3 Reid Research, Fairfax Media-Ipsos, NZ Herald DigiPoll, Roy Morgan New Zealand (only one of its two-a-month is included) and UMR Research, which is not published. The four polls in the average up to early August were, in date order, Morgan, TV1, UMR and Fairfax. The poll on whether the country is going in the right or wrong direction is from Roy Morgan New Zealand.)
