Acting Prime Minister Winston Peters has fired a scalding condemnation at pollsters after his party New Zealand First dropped below the five percent threshold in the latest Colmar Brunton poll.
On Monday, Colmar Brunton released its latest polling which had National atop on 45 percent, Labour on 43 percent, the Green Party on six percent and New Zealand First on three percent.
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That means on those numbers, New Zealand First wouldn't return to Parliament as it is below the important five percent benchmark.
Peters, who has previously criticised public polls for underrating his party and frequently not predicting its level of support prior to elections, slammed the latest poll as a "fraud".
"These polls are just a sham. I have got a set of polls just the other day which are the very reverse of that and they have done that, where New Zealand First is concerned, for decades," he told The AM Show.
"Why am I still here if they're right?"
Peters said some pollsters often don't mention New Zealand First when asking questions.
"If you are going to ask a question about political parties, and you say 'if there is an election tomorrow, would you vote for Labour, National Party or the Greens?' and leave out New Zealand First, what is the likely consequence?" Peters asked.
"They are hopeless and more importantly they are a fraud.
"If you ask 'of the preferred Prime Ministers who do you like? Jacinda Ardern or Simon Bridges?' What are the chances of someone else getting in there when half your pollsters are doing that and they go out there and put in front of the public and call themselves respectable?"
Despite that, TVNZ, which released the Colmar Brunton poll results, says it doesn't prompt participants with a list of potential preferred Prime Minister picks.
But Peters believes pollsters purposefully inflate certain parties.
"Your very valuable programme has just wasted three minutes talking about these unreconstructed, arrogant morons.
"They have been told this countless times how their polls inflate certain parties and deflate other parties purposefully."
In the latest Newshub-Reid Research poll, released in June, New Zealand First saw a similar result as to the Colmar Brunton poll, with 2.8 percent.
The Colmar Brunton result followed 1003 people being polled via landline and mobile phone between July 20 and July 24.
Newshub.
