National Party slumps in new political poll

The National Party has dropped in favourability in a new political poll, mirroring a similar result released by Newshub earlier in the week.

The latest 1News Colmar Brunton poll has Labour up three points to 53 percent and National down six points to 32 percent, the Green Party is down one point to five percent and ACT is up two points to five percent. New Zealand First is unchanged on two percent, and New Conservative and the Māori Party are both on one percent, also unchanged.

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These results are similar to the latest Newshub-Reid Research poll that was released on Sunday, which also shows Labour could govern alone.

Newshub's poll put Labour on 60.9 percent, National on 25.1 percent, the Greens on 5.7 percent, ACT at 3.3 percent and New Zealand First on two percent.

National leader Judith Collins saw a rise in popularity in the preferred Prime Minister stakes in the Newshub poll, up 11.5 points to 14.6 percent. But she's still well behind Jacinda Ardern, who is sitting on 62 percent favourability.

Voters were also asked if they trust Ardern. An overwhelming 79.4 percent said "yes" while just 17 percent said "no", and few didn't know.

Whereas Collins had just 30.8 percent say they trust her while 49.7 percent say they don't trust her, and 19.6 percent of voters were undecided.

She suggested on Monday it's instead Ardern who is untrustworthy over the way she handled the case of Iain Lees-Galloway, who she sacked last week after revealing he'd had an affair with an official who used to work for him.

Ardern denied this, but Collins said earlier this week she believes the Prime Minister knew about his affair all along.

"I didn't know anything about it. I think she probably did," Collins said, but she wouldn't go far as to say the Prime Minister lied. 

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When Collins was asked if it's okay for a politician to lie, she said it can depend on the situation.

"I think it is occasionally going to be one of those things where you just can't tell everything about something."

Voters in Newshub's poll disagreed with her, with 86.3 percent saying it's not okay for politicians to lie. Just 9.9 percent said it is okay for them to lie.

Ardern said "no" when asked if it's okay for politicians to lie.

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Newshub