More than two thirds of Maori Party supporters believe the party did the right thing in joining the National government coalition following last year's General Election, according to a survey.
The Marae-DigiPoll survey of 1002 people -- 700 on the Maori Electoral Roll and 302 on the General roll -- released today(Sunday), indicated that if an election were held now, 48 percent would vote for the Maori Party, 26.1 percent for Labour, 19.8 percent for National and 3 percent for the Greens.
NZ First garnered 1.9 percent support and Act 0.4 percent.
The 700 on the Maori roll were also asked which party their preferred electorate candidate would come from; 56.6 percent said the Maori Party, 32.8 percent said Labour and 6.6 percent said National.
Of those who said they would vote for the Maori Party, 68.1 percent believed the coalition arrangement with National was the right move. Twenty-three percent disagreed while 8.6 percent did not know.
National party voters within the poll were stronger in their belief it was a good move, with nearly 93 percent supporting it. Just 3.9 percent disagreed and 3.3 percent did not know.
However, Maori Party voters were less keen on the coalition's arrangement of party co-leader and Maori Affairs Minister Pita Sharples sitting outside Cabinet while National MP and Associate Maori Affairs Minister Georgina te Heuhue sits inside Cabinet.
Fifty-six percent did not agree with the arrangement, while 32.7 percent thought it was a good set up. The poll showed 53.4 percent thought the arrangement did not meet the interests of Maori voters effectively.
Meanwhile, of all those polled, 30.3 percent preferred John Key as the prime minister, followed by Helen Clark, 10.9 percent, Dr Sharples, 8.7 percent and Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia 6.1 percent.
Labour leader Phil Goff had 4.4 percent support, ahead of former NZ First leader Winston Peters with 3.5 percent.
Jobs topped a list of top 10 issues, with 22.5 percent citing unemployment as their top concern, followed by health, education, family, the cost of living, economy and housing.
Treaty claims was ranked the 10th most important issue, with 1.2 percent.
The poll had a margin of error of 3.1 percent. However, because the sample sizes were small the results were only indicative.
