Last year’s rows keep Labour down

Press, 18 February 1989, Page 8

Last year’s rows keep Labour down

By

OLIVER RIDDELL

in Wellington The Labour Party has not recovered public confidence since the big rows late last year between the Prime Minister and Mr Roger Douglas. In the first public opinion poll of 1989, Labour is still languishing 17 points behind National. This is two points better than in the December, 1988, poll but shows that Labour is beginning 1989 as it spent the whole of last year — miles behind National. In the latest “Eye Witness” Heylen poll, 56 per cent support National and 39 per cent support Labour. Labour’s only consolation is that 26 per cent of those polled were undecided.

The Prime Minister, Mr

Lange, saw his personal popularity sink from 20 ger cent in December to 18 per cent in February — the lowest his popularity has been since April last year. The Leader of the Opposition, Mr Bolger, had his popularity go up from 10 per cent to 12 per cent while the popularity of Mr Winston Peters fell from 19 per cent to 17 per cent. There was a marked improvement in economic optimism between the two polls. It had been only 30 per cent in December and rose 15 points to 45 per cent in February.

But there was reduced approval of Government handling of interest rates, education and unemployment (which had an 84 per cent disapproval rating).