New Zealand dollar hits 6-week high as opposition tumbles in pre-election poll

The New Zealand dollar jumped as much as 1 per cent on Wednesday following the release of a new poll showing the governing National Party could rule alone after the country’s general election on September 23.

The Kiwi strengthened to an intraday high of $0.7372 against the dollar, the firmest level in six weeks.

The poll, published by ONE News Colmar Brunton, has National, the centre-right party which has governed since 2008, up 6 percentage points at 46 per cent. The main opposition party, Labour, is down 7 percentage points at 37 percent.

The biggest of the minor parties was the Green Party, up 1 percentage point at 8 per cent. New Zealand First, which has looked likely to hold the balance of power after the election, slipped 1 percentage point to 5 per cent, bang-on on the 5 per cent threshold needed to re-enter parliament.

Shamubeel Eaqub, an economist with Sense Partners, told the Financial Times on September 12 that the New Zealand dollar had been spiking up and down on the polls, which had been “all over the place” in the run up to the election on Saturday.