New Zealand First leader Winston Peters says political polls get the numbers wrong, citing when his party fell to its lowest figure in the recent Newshub-Reid Research poll.
It was NZ First's lowest result in a decade, down 0.2 points to 2 percent.
“The polls are wrong, that’s the problem," Peters says. "There’s a surge on already for New Zealand First. I know that from information that I seriously rely upon."
According to Reid Research, 1000 people over 18 were sampled in the poll. Some 700 were interviewed by phone and 300 online but Peters doesn’t agree with the survey methods.
“When you get the enquiries being made, particularly over 65 years of age, how many landlines have they got, who’s asking them? No one. I would have thought that, if you were a pollster, you’d want to know that.”
The same poll had Labour on 60.9 percent, the highest in the poll’s history, while National polled at 25.1 points, down 5.5.
No chance for Nats
Peter thinks Labour won’t govern alone if it wins the election. Meanwhile, he says National “doesn’t have a chance” at winning at all.
“You can’t have four leaders in three years as the National Party has and think you’re going to make it. The image of disunity has turned a lot of people off.”
Peters says he hasn’t chosen whether he’d like to side with either National or Labour Party if either win.
“We’re in the middle. We’re not in the hard left or the hard right. We are the party of commonsense and in the middle, and of course, that can be a lonely pathway to follow but out there hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders rely upon us and they don’t answer polls.”
After the 2017 election Peters decided to turn down an offer from National to form the coalition with Labour.
“We, at great risk to ourselves, looked at the huge economic difficulties facing us in 2017 and weighed it all up, and being offered far more by National by the way, we said we’re going to have to go down this path and get a whole lot more done for the voters who voted for us.”
He says his party is the “kingmaker”.
“We’ve either been the kingmaker or missed out being the kingmaker by no more than two or three seats in any election all the way since 1993.”
But all will be revealed when the election takes place on September 19.
