Labour has overtaken National in the latest Taxpayers Union-Curia poll, with Chris Hipkins also pipping Christopher Luxon in the preferred Prime Minister stakes.

According to the poll results, released on Monday afternoon, National is up 1.7 points to 33.6%, but Labour has moved past it, up 2.8 points to 34.1%.

Meanwhile, the Greens have fallen 3.2 points to 10%, while Act has declined 2.3 points to 7.7%. Te Pāti Māori has risen 2.1 points to 6.5%, while New Zealand First is down 1.3 points to 5.1%.

Translating the results to seats in the House, both Labour and National are up three seats each to 42. The Greens are down four seats to 12, Act is down two to 10, NZ First is down two to six, and TPM is up two to eight.

On these results, the centre-left bloc of Labour, the Greens and TPM would have 62 seats. On the other hand, the centre-right has 58 seats. That would mean the left would form the next government and continues a trend seen since the end of last year of the current government losing support.

This poll has Hipkins overtaking Luxon as the country’s preferred Prime Minister. Luxon has dropped 0.4 points to 20.3%, while Hipkins is up 3.1 points to 20.7%. Act’s David Seymour falls to 5% (-1.4 points), NZ First leader Winston Peters is at 8.6% (up 0.6 points) and the Greens’ Chlöe Swarbrick falls 4.1 points to 4.8%.

Hipkins has an overall net favourability of 4%, compared to -10% for Luxon.

This is the latest poll to show the centre-left in the dominant position. Both the Taxpayers’ Union-Curia poll and 1News-Verian poll in February had the Opposition ahead.

The Government has faced a number of tricky issues over the past month. That’s included the resignation of minister Andrew Bayly following what he described as “overbearing” behaviour towards a staff member and uproar over issues to do with the free school lunches programme.

Luxon himself faced scrutiny for his handling of the Bayly situation. There have been questions about why it took so long to inform the public of Bayly’s resignation as well as criticism of the Prime Minister’s response to questions in a Mike Hosking interview on the matter.

During the interview, Luxon was repeatedly asked whether he would have sacked Bayly if he had not resigned. He avoided clearly answering the question until finally, after several minutes of interrogation, saying he would have. He admitted a day later that he doesn’t get his communication “right all the time”.

Last week, Luxon said MPs hadn’t raised any concerns about his communication ability and believed he still had his party’s backing as leader.

“I’m waking up every day focused on the New Zealand people and at the moment they want us to deal with the cost of living crisis and that’s what we’re doing ... we’re working hard to make sure we’re delivering for the New Zealand people,” he said.

Labour last week revealed a caucus reshuffle centred around a “refreshed economic team”. It also moved a number of former ministers away from portfolios they held in government in order to give experience to other MPs and show the party had changed since its 2023 defeat.

National’s Chris Bishop responded to the reshuffle by saying Labour was just “reshuffling the deck chairs”.

“This is a team that failed in government, so simply reshuffling the same failed team that failed New Zealand in the past and giving them some new job titles is not a solution,” Bishop said.

The Prime Minister has attempted to drive a narrative this year that the Government is focused on “economic growth”. It has made a number of announcements in this area, including around improving tourism. This week the Government will host a number of global banks and investment firms at a summit in Auckland.

The poll was conducted by Curia Market Research Ltd for the Taxpayers’ Union. It is a random poll of 1000 adult New Zealanders and is weighted to the overall adult population. It was conducted by phone (landlines and mobile) and online between Sunday, March 2, and Tuesday, March 4, 2025, has a maximum margin of error of +/- 3.1% and 5.4% were undecided on the party vote question.

Jamie Ensor is a political reporter in the NZ Herald Press Gallery team based at Parliament. He was previously a TV reporter and digital producer in the Newshub Press Gallery office.