New poll – Labor, Jacinda Ardern above; National, Judith Collins down

The Labor government is on its honeymoon in the latest One News Colmar Brunton opinion poll, increasing its landslide on election night to a rating of 53 percent, up seven percent in the latest poll.

Meanwhile, National languishes at just 25 percent, down six percent in the mid-October poll.

The minor parties, Act and the Greens are stable at 8, while the Maori Party is at 2.

The news is the same for preferred prime ministers, Jacinda Ardern up 3 at 58 percent, her second-highest score in history, Judith Collins thrashed 12 percent, a drop of eight.

What worries him is the first performance of former Air New Zealand chief Christopher Luxon at two percent.

Much of the attention has focused on New Zealand’s minority parties, particularly the recently re-elected Maori Party.

The Maori Party has been in the headlines for several weeks; first after a fight with House Speaker Trevor Mallard, then after his MPs, Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, delivered major keynote speeches last week.

It has been almost two months since New Zealanders went to the polls.

Labor won a historic 50 percent support, enough to form a 65-seat majority in the House.

Nacional, however, fell to 25.6 percent. That is their second lowest electoral result in recent history.

The dramatic defeat spelled the end of Gerry Brownlee’s deputy party leadership: he withdrew a few weeks after the election.

Instead, Shane Reti was elected second in charge of the match.

And there was also a change of leadership by the government.

After New Zealand First failed to reach the 5% threshold, a new Deputy Prime Minister had to be selected.

Kelvin Davis of Labor told Ardern that he did not want the job, but was willing to continue as deputy leader of the party.

Finance Minister Grant Robertson was selected for the position.