Is that all?

by frog

So, the Herald‘s much-trumpeted “poll shock”, its “surprise result” which will “shake up” the “political landscape”?

Well, um, New Zealand First is up from 3.6 to 7.3 percent. Is that all? More to the point, is this even news at all? NZF has been on 7 or 8 percent in the last four public opinion polls (SST, TV1, TV3, NBR), so this result is, well, a big yawn.

One suspects that what happened is the Herald went to print on Friday afternoon with its “poll shock” before the poll was finished or its results were ready. That’s what happened back in January, when they predicted National had closed the gap with Labour to five points, when in actual fact the final poll showed a 9.5 percent gap.

So, perhaps the early results of the poll had NZF much higher – at over 10 percent, which would have been news – only for later returns and/or analysis to see NZF’s rating fall.

Anyway, in the future, mightn’t it be wise to hold off on announcing the results till they’re ready? Anyway, the results are very much status quo: Labour 44.7; National 33.2; NZF 7.3; Greens 5.8; United 3.1; Act 2.2; Maori Party 2.1; Progressives 0.3. The holding pattern continues. No wonder the Herald keeps overreaching when spinning its poll results: “nothing much has changed” isn’t really news.