Taxpayers' Union Curia Poll: February 2022

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

The polling period was 1 February–10 February, so it only covers the first three days of the Convoy 2022 protest at Parliament.

Here are the headline results:

National is returning to a competitive position under the leadership of Christopher Luxon. While much of National's gains appear to have come at ACT's expense, overall the centre-right parties are closing the gap with Labour and the Greens.

The “Other” vote includes TOP, who this month have reached 2.0%, up from 1.1% last month. This may be attributable to the announcement of Raf Manji as the new Party Leader. If TOP continues to poll at this level or higher, we will include them in the headline figures of future Taxpayers’ Union Curia Polls.

Here is how these results would translate to seats in Parliament:

The shifts in party support result in National gaining eight seats, ACT losing six, Labour gaining three, the Greens losing five, and no change for the Māori Party. This means the gap between the Centre-Right and the Centre-Left blocs has shrunk from nine seats in January to just five seats in February.

(For the purposes of this chart, the Māori Party is not included in the two major blocs.)

Just like the TV polls, our pollsters do not read out options to participants to choose their preferred Prime Minister – we just include those who are named as preferred by more than a few people in the random sample of one thousand voters. Here are the updated preferred Prime Minister ratings, shown over time:

Luxon is up significantly, at the expense of Seymour. Ardern remains strong.

The apparent improvement in public mood over the summer break has faded, with New Zealanders now split almost evenly on whether the country is heading in the “right” or “wrong” direction:

The poll also asked New Zealanders whether Labour or National is seen as "best at" a range of issues:

National is now seen as significantly better than Labour on the economy and slightly better in jobs and law & order. Labour is seen by voters as far better than National on health, leadership and especially Covid-19.

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 Tuesday 01 February to Thursday 10 February 2022 with the median response on Tuesday 08 February 2022. The sample size was 1,000 eligible New Zealand voters 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 1,000 respondents, the maximum sampling error (for a result of 50%) is +/- 3.1%, at the 95% confidence level. This poll should be formally referred to as the “Taxpayers’ Union Curia Poll”.