National Party MPs appear to be standing behind their leader Simon Bridges in the wake of a new 1 NEWS Colmar Brunton poll showing support for him as preferred Prime Minister is dropping.
The poll showed that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's Labour Party has 45 per cent support, up two percentage points from the last survey in November, while the National Party has fallen four points to 42 per cent.
In the preferred prime minister polling, Ms Ardern has gone up five points as to 44 per cent, while Simon Bridges' position as leader remains under strain, dropping one point since November to just 6 per cent - putting him equal with Judith Collins.
National MPs this morning either issued messages of support for Simon Bridges as leader, or diverted attention back towards the Government.
"Well of course as a party we want our party vote to be as high as possible and the highest in the country, that's our goal," Amy Adams said.
"We're very comfortable with where we're sitting but obviously we're working to make it even higher still.
"Our caucus has chosen Simon, we honestly believe he's our best opportunity to take us into the next election - he has the full backing of our caucus."
Gerry Brownlee said: "We're quite comfortable with where we're at, we've got a long way to go before the next election," before diverting attention back to the government, saying, "If you were to ask anybody what is the one big achievement of the current govenrment, it's pretty hard to pin it down".
"We've gotten into an age of personality politics but unfortunately just having someone with a big personality that everyone likes doesn't mean that you've got the sort of leadership New Zealand needs.
"Tell me one area that she's leading that's going well?"
Alfred Ngaro told 1 NEWS "I'm actually just pretty grateful that the public still see us as being competitive out there - still being in the forties after 17 months - you've gotta say, that's pretty impressive.
"Everyone knows that, basically, Leader of the Opposition is probably the worst job in Parliament, because you've got to work incredibly hard, and that's what he's doing."
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