DOMINION POST: National is under mounting pressure to start rolling out substantive policy soon as a new poll suggests rising impatience with its refusal to show its hand too early.
The Fairfax Media-Nielsen survey found 55 per cent of voters want to see policy from National now, against 35 per cent who are happy to wait.
Even National voters are split: 49 per cent want details now, against 47 per cent who could wait.
The poll comes as National confirms it has finalised the details of its tax package - and says a deteriorating economy will not make a significant difference to the size of the cuts it plans to implement.
Leader John Key said National had already "nailed down" its flagship tax cut policy but would wait till the first week of the election campaign to unveil it - after the Treasury's pre-election and fiscal update.
National's lack of policy detail has come under increasing scrutiny, but the party's view has been that releasing it too soon would give Labour the upper hand.
Soundings by party strategists, meanwhile, have suggested that, with the election still months away, there are few signs of a clamour in the wider electorate for policy detail.
But today's findings, coupled with Saturday's Fairfax poll finding that Labour has started to claw back its lost support, may force them to revise that view.
Mr Key is unmoved, saying the party has set a timetable and will not change it, though it has been accelerating the release of policy in recent weeks. Health, education and social welfare plans had been "broadly signed off" but would be released in bite-sized pieces rather than a single initiative.
The Fairfax poll put National on 51 per cent, down three points, and Labour on 35, up five, closing the gap from a whopping 24 points last month to 16.
A One News-Colmar Brunton poll had a similar result, while a 3News survey put National on 48 per cent against 35 for Labour.
Prime Minister Helen Clark said the results of the polls were "positive" and "encouraging", but there was clearly more work to do.
She put the small turnaround down to people distinguishing between what events the Government had control over and which they didn't – namely petrol prices and the flow-on effects of the international credit crunch.
National's policy releases had also helped.
"I think we have seen the Opposition more on the backfoot in the last month or so," she said on TVNZ's Breakfast programme.
"They've started to come out with policy that is very unpopular. If there is one thing that has got people galvanised it's their policy to privatise the ACC, that's gone down like the proverbial lead balloon."
Minor parties recorded little change in the latest polls, with the Greens managing to stay above the 5 per cent threshold for seats under MMP and New Zealand First still below it.
National's leader John Key was still more popular as preferred prime minister than Helen Clark, but she was starting to close in on him.
The Government still has a long way to go for it have a fighting chance of winning the election, which must be held by November 15.
Miss Clark has said Labour will regain support when the campaign starts and National has to release its core policies.
If that trend has started now it will be good news for Labour, which for months has had to deal with polls showing National holding as lead of more than 20 points which would give it a landslide win in an election.
- With NZPA
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