A recent poll shows a "huge vote of no confidence" in New Zealand's major candidates to be Prime Minister, a political commentator says.
According to The Guardian Essential poll, released on Wednesday, only about 27 percent of New Zealanders believe Labour leader Chris Hipkins and National's Christopher Luxon were appealing options to lead the country.
Speaking to AM Early, Victoria University political scientist Bryce Edwards said the poll showed voters didn't want Hipkins or Luxon.
"We're seeing support for both Labour and National at historic lows when you combine them," Edwards told host Michael O'Keefe. "Together in that poll, 64 percent of people were supporting Labour or National - normally it's about 80 percent."
Edwards said New Zealanders were "looking around at different" voting options "in a historically high way".
He said the poll also showed people were "grumpy about the state of the Government" - with 55 percent of New Zealanders believing the country was on the wrong track.
"It's a real turnaround from that last election… so back in this time last election cycle, 76 percent of New Zealanders thought that New Zealand was in the right direction - only 17 percent said it was in the wrong direction. So that led to a big vote for Labour."
Edwards noted while National hadn't captured many of the voters unhappy with Labour, The Guardian poll showed the Nats could still form a Government with the help of the ACT Party. That echoes last week's Newshub-Reid Research poll, which had National and ACT on 63 seats combined - two above the threshold needed to govern.
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