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Destiny works in United’s favour: poll
More articles on this topic: Destiny ChurchesThe Christian-dominated United Future party appears to have become an early beneficiary of the Destiny Church’s sudden appearance on the political scene.
United Future, which has six Christian MPs amongst its total of eight, saw a sudden rise in its support in polling last week.
It was the same week thousands of fundamentalist Destiny Church members took the national spotlight with their march on Parliament in opposition to the Civil Union Bill and in support of the family.
According to the Sunday Star-Times/BRC poll, support for United Future jumped from 1% in July, where it has been all year, to 4% in polling last week.
Destiny New Zealand, an offshoot of the church that plans to stand candidates at the next election, was not offered as an option in this month’s poll.
But United Future leader Peter Dunne said the poll rise was more likely to be due to a “thank god we’re not Destiny” element.
“We have no wish to be involved with them in any shape or form,” he said.
The poll contained depressing news for National, whose ratings have been steadily falling following an explosion of support after leader Don Brash’s Orewa speech.
Support for National dropped two points to 37% in the BRC poll, five points behind Labour. Labour also dropped two points to 42% but retained its five point lead over National.
New Zealand First and the Greens remained on 5%, Act remained on 3% and the Maori Party stayed on 3%. The Progressive Party was steady on 1%.
National’s drop in support has yet to bottom out, reawakening anxieties amongst National MPs about the inexperience of their leader. Last week the party came under questioning from the media over the failure of Brash to front regularly in parliamentary question time.
National strategists claim parliament is irrelevant, saying Brash is instead building support in small towns with a round of provincial speaking engagements.
But MPs privately worry that Brash is not aggressive and quick enough to take the fight to the government in the house each day.
Auckland University political scientist Jack Vowles said Brash needed to regain momentum. There had been little follow-through on the stand on treaty issues.
Since then, the entire ground on race relations had shifted, eating away at much of the advantage it had established.
“It’s clear Labour is no longer as clearly identified with the defence of Maori issues,” said Vowles.
Underlying everything was a buoyant economy providing a feel-good factor that was hard for the Opposition to counter, said Vowles.
“On balance the edge has still got to be to Labour, if only because of the economy,” he said.
The poll of 501 people has a margin of error of 4.6%.
The poll was the first to pick up National’s rocketing support after the Orewa speech.
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