Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Analysis - It's all still to play for in the countdown to the October election, but the trend for the governing Labour Party is only heading one way - and that is down.
On the right, National and ACT would have the numbers to form a government in the latest Newshub Reid Research Poll; also notable is New Zealand First pushing strongly towards the crucial 5 percent party vote threshold.
The two sides have already been squaring up: New Zealand First has ruled out working with Labour, but is open to working with National - and for now the feeling's mutual. Te Pāti Māori has been struck off the list of parties National would work with. Labour and the Greens would aim to get the numbers to form a government, with Te Pāti Māori also potentially included.
ACT is National's only other realistic option based on current polls, and leader David Seymour has also laid down some bottom lines, ruling out New Zealand First and its leader Winston Peters.
"It's impossible to see us sitting around the Cabinet table," Seymour told reporters at Parliament. "The main reason for that is he ain't gonna be in Parliament ... in order to be a minister round the Cabinet table you've got to be a member of Parliament first.
"There's no way that you're going to solve the problems that New Zealand needs to solve when you've got someone who's had so many chances and who's screwed it up so many times before."
New Zealand First having no absolutely no shot at returning to Parliament is wishful thinking on Seymour's part; he would not relish the prospect of once again walking the halls of power with Winston Peters, but ACT is also in a pitched battled with his party for votes on the ground. With New Zealand First registering 3 percent in the latest 1News-Verian poll, and 4 percent in the Newshub-Reid Research, it puts the party into credible territory - and gives a bit more assurance a vote for New Zealand First may not necessarily be wasted.
It's a different dynamic this election too: in past years Peters has refused to signal favouring National or Labour before the vote, he now says he would not be talking to Labour after 14 October if New Zealand First gets 5 percent or wins a seat.
He is of course talking up his party's prospects, telling RNZ its support is "way past 5 percent ... [the polls] have always under-rated New Zealand First at this time in the election campaign".
"People should ignore the mainstream media who have tried to shut us out but the packed halls around the country show that there's a surge on and it'll go all the way to the election," Peters said.
National's leader Christopher Luxon has avoided cutting Peters out, describing it as a hypothetical with the party not in Parliament. He's keeping his options open, well aware there may be a scenario in which National could end up having to negotiate with him.
"It hasn't really been a focus of mine to be honest," Luxon told RNZ on Wednesday. "What I'm focused on is building the party vote for National, that's the way you change the government."
He's been pushing the line of a "coalition of chaos" on the left - but could he face his own fraught situation with ACT and New Zealand First?
"You are all getting well ahead of yourselves," Luxon told reporters asking about the dynamic between National's two potential partners. His message to voters: "Don't do anything strategic, don't do anything funky, actually just vote for the National Party".
It is not something Labour leader and Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has to worry about: "Winston Peters has ruled out working with us and I'm quite comfortable about that", he said on Thursday.
But he does have to worry about the polls which shows support for his party slowly but surely slipping away.
New Zealand has been through literal and figurative "storms" in the last three years, he says, which has influenced people's mood and view of politics and politicians.
"The polls are very volatile at the moment, there is no winner coming out of any of the opinion polls at the moment - and that means that it's game on."
Under pressure to reveal Labour's election plans, Hipkins says they will release a full manifesto and furthermore some non-negotiable bottom lines, the "absolute musts" for a future Labour government.
He says Labour's priority right now is to see out this term of government but once it's time to campaign the party will put forward a very "positive and compelling vision for New Zealand".
"We've got three more parliamentary sitting weeks to go, and then the balloon will go up and the campaign will be on."
