Weaker-than-expected economy, political polls turn on Christopher Luxon
Friday, 19 September 2025
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon walked into a $1500-a-head dinner last night with his leadership of the country and its economy under serious pressure.
Just eight hours before Stats NZ revealed the economy had shrunk by an unexpected 0.9% in the second quarter of the year, while new polling reveals the public is more fed up than it has been at any point since the last election.
The GDP results were far worse than forecast by the market and indicate the economy essentially stood still throughout the first six months of 2025 ‒ a year Luxon started with a State of the Nation speech mentioning “growth” 31 times.
The September Anacta Research poll from Talbot Mills, obtained by The Post, shows a continued deterioration for the Government in both its party vote standing and in the number of Kiwis questioning the country’s direction.
Talbot Mills is Labour’s pollster, but the poll was conducted for the firm’s corporate clients, and was taken between September 1 and 10.
A majority (55%) now think the country is on the “wrong track” ‒ the highest figure since just before the election in October of 2023, when 59% felt the same way.
In a new question for September, 45% thought the Government was “worse” than the previous Labour one, with just 30% saying it was “better”. A fifth (21%) thought it was “about the same” and 4% were unsure.
A larger majority (84%) thought the economic conditions were either “poor” or “not so good”.
The party polling showed a small drop for National from its already poor position in August, with 31% of voters backing the party, down from 32% in August.
Labour was up one point to 35%, the Greens were down one to 10%, NZ First was up one to 10%, ACT was down one to 7%, while Te Pāti Māori was steady on 4%.
On these results, Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori could form a Government ‒ but this was a very thin lead.
Neither Luxon and Labour leader Chris Hipkins had a good month in the preferred prime minister figures, with Hipkins down one to 25% and Luxon down one to 20%.
Asked who they thought would lead National into the next election, only 47% said it would be Luxon ‒ 34% were unsure. A smattering of other National frontbenchers rated as potential new leaders, including Nicola Willis, Chris Bishop and Mark Mitchell.
Older voters were the most likely to see the current Government as “better” than the last, but no age group had more voters seeing the Government as better than those who saw it as worse.
Luxon was in Parliament earlier in the day but did not talk to the media.
However, he was the main attraction at a National Party donor dinner at Auckland’s War Memorial Museum last night, with tickets starting at $1500. The invite explicitly tagged the event as a “2026 campaign fundraising dinner”.
Trump hit our psyche
Willis addressed a 1pm press conference on the poor economic performance and laid much of the blame on US President Donald Trump’s Liberation Day tariff announcement, which occurred one day into the quarter in question.
The announcement ‒ rather than just the tariffs themselves ‒ hit New Zealand’s “psyche” and meant businesses held off making investments, she said.
Willis was hopeful the certainty around the tariffs ‒ raised from 10% to 15% in August ‒ would mean growth had returned, particularly as lower interest rates filtered through the economy.
“It is important to remember that this is backwards looking data. We are now nearing the end of the third quarter, and there are signs that the economy is now growing again.”
Labour’s finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said the tariff argument did not stack up, given other countries hit by the tariffs had grown over the same period ‒ Australia by 0.6%, the UK by 0.3% and China by 1.1%.
“They will blame everyone else for their failure and say they just need more time. But the truth is clear: under Christopher Luxon, New Zealand is heading in the wrong direction,” she said.
– Additional reporting by Anna Whyte