A rough election campaign for New Zealand First leader Winston Peters just got a little bit tougher for him with one poll predicting he will be trounced in Tauranga on election day.
A TVNZ poll put electorate support for National’s Simon Bridges at 54 percent, up 6 points since the last poll in August, Mr Peters was steady on 28 percent and the Kiwi Party candidate was on 7 percent and Labour’s on 5 percent.
Tauranga support for the New Zealand First in the party vote as also down to 6 percent compared to 13 percent in 2005.
Peters was hoping to win back his old seat, because his party is struggling to reach the five percent threshold in the nationwide party vote.
Peters has been hit by revelations over not declaring to donations to his party, as well as the saga of Owen Glenn’s donations to his lawyer Brian Henry.
Peters was censured by Parliament for not declaring Glenn’s donation and the evidence pointed to Peters having known about the donation despite his denials.
The Serious Fraud Office has said fraud was not committed, but the police are yet to announce whether they are to lay charges for the party failing to declare donations from the Spencer Trust, which was run by his brother.
Over the weekend, the Dominion Post published material that appeared to show that one of Peters’ advisers — former National MP Ross Meurant — claimed he could get policy deals in exchange for donations.
Meurant brokered donations from Philip Vela, a senior member of the wealthy Vela family, before the 1999 election.
Vela was told by Meurant that he would have an opportunity to frame friendly policy in business areas to which Vela was connected.
Peters said the money had no bearing on his party’s racing policy, which he said was written in 1993.
