Taxpayers' Union Curia Poll: August 2022

Exclusive to members and supporters, we can reveal the results of the eleventh Taxpayers’ Union Curia Poll.

The polling period was Sunday 03 - Thursday 11 August 2022.

Here are the headline results:

Support for the governing Labour Party has risen 0.5 points to 35.2%, while the opposition National Party has dropped 3 points to 34.0%. ACT has risen 0.5 points to 10.5%. The Greens have risen 1 point to 9.5%. No other parties reach the 5% threshold. Te Pāti Māori has dropped 0.2 points to 3.5%.

Here is how these results would translate to seats in Parliament, assuming all electorate seats are held:

For the fourth consecutive month in the Taxpayers’ Union Curia Poll, the Centre-Right bloc is ahead of the Centre-Left. However, the Centre-Right no longer has enough seats to govern without the support of Te Pāti Māori.

Centre-Left (Lab/Green) = 57 (+2) Centre-Right (Nat/ACT) = 58 (-2) Centre (NZF/Māori) = 5 (0).
This puts Te Pāti Māori in the position of King/ Queen maker with whichever coalition they choose becoming Government. This assumes all electorate seats are held.

Support for Jacinda Ardern as preferred Prime Minister has dropped by 0.7 points to 39.5%. Luxon’s slide continues from 28% in June 2022 to 22.4% last month and this month a drop of a further 2.9 points takes him to 19.5%. David Seymour has risen 1.8 points to 7.7% and Winston Peters has almost doubled his support going from 2.3% to 4.2% (+1.9).

In terms of what issues respondents identify as their major voting issue, COVID-19 continues to fade in importance. Focus on the cost of living has also eased off.

For the full polling report, covering the detailed insights the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition are used to receiving, join our Taxpayer Caucus – our club of most generous financial supporters who make our work possible.

The scientific poll was conducted by Curia Market Research and commissioned by the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union. The full polling report is being released exclusively to members of our Taxpayer Caucus. As is well known, but for full disclosure, David Farrar is a member of the Board of the Taxpayers' Union and also a Director of Curia Market Research Ltd.

The Taxpayers’ Union Curia Poll was conducted from Wednesday 3 August to Thursday 11 August 2022. The median response was collected on Sunday 07 August 2022. The sample size was 1,200 eligible New Zealand voters 800 by phone and 400 by online panel. The sample selection for the phone panel is from those who are contactable on a landline or mobile phone selected at random from 20,000 nationwide phone numbers. The results are weighted to reflect the overall voting adult population in terms of gender, age, and area. Based on this sample of 1,200 respondents, the maximum sampling error (for a result of 50%) is +/- 2.8%, at the 95% confidence level. This poll should be formally referred to as the “Taxpayers’ Union Curia Poll”.