If an election was held last Saturday, according to polling commissioned by ACT, the result would have been a hung
Parliament and NZ First would have held the balance of power.
ACT has the best polling. Our polling says that since Jenny Shipley announced the election date, the Labour-Alliance
coalition has lost ground.
The more the Alliance puts up billboard saying "Alliance, the heart of the new government", the more Labour and possible
Labour voters are turned off.
The electorate does want change but not to go back thirty years.
Voters are realising that under MMP they get two votes and so they can vote for positive change and give their list vote
to ACT.
Our polls show that the Greens' decision to go it alone was a blunder in that they are now 1.9%. National's polling in
Coromandel says they are trailing in that seat too so they are simply not a factor.
Our polling does put NZ First over the 5% mark, at 7%, at the expense of the Alliance who are down to 6%. However as I
will explain later, the NZ First support is very flaky and I believe won't survive the campaign.
Our polling now puts ACT at 8.6% and we are rising strongly. However our probing of voters shows that in fact at least
10% would vote for ACT and there is very strong approval of ACT's performance in Parliament and overwhelming approval of
our new ideas.
A massive 75% of the electorate agrees with ACT's proposals to end the Waitangi grievance industry.
ACT is the party that the majority of voters believe has the best policies on law and order. This is reinforced by the
TV One Assignment poll that stated that 86% agreed with "Richard Prebble's Truth in Sentencing Bill that would require
offenders to serve at least 80% of their sentence."
Our polling also confirms that the majority of the electorate agrees with ACT's proposal to make social welfare a hand
up not a hand out.
ACT is also regarded by small business as the party most likely to cut unnecessary red tape and bureaucracy.
A massive 56% of the electorate strongly supports ACT in our refusal to allow Winston Peters to blackmail the National
party.
So the campaign is all good news for ACT. And it's bad news for Labour, the Alliance and NZ First. Even a third of the
NZ First supporters believe that Mr Peters abused the balance of power after the last election and they are concerned
that he may do so again. And ironically the fact that polls show he holds the balance of power scares even his own
supporters.
Our polls do say that following the success of APEC, Jenny Shipley has not only taken over from Helen Clark, but more
important there is no enthusiasm even from Labour's supporters for a Labour-Alliance, Clark-Anderton government.
This election is in the balance, but as voters realise that it's the ACT Party that has the fresh new ideas and the
quality candidates, it is ACT that is poised to win the election.
ends