Boost for Jacinda Ardern as the New Zealand PM’s Labour Party tops latest poll

New polling results have given a boost to recovering New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern as she recovers from surgery.

Ardern went under the knife and a general anaesthetic at the weekend to extract an impacted wisdom tooth.

The surgery caused Ardern to miss Monday’s cabinet meeting but a spokesperson for the prime minister said she was ‘working from home for now but doing fine’.

Her mood will have been brightened by her popularity in a survey by first-time New Zealand pollsters YouGov.

The British company, which has partnered with news outlet Stuff, registered Labour support at 41 per cent, ahead of the National opposition, which is the biggest party in the current parliament, on 38 per cent.

Significantly, both Ardern’s coalition partners – the Greens and NZ First – are on eight per cent.

Extrapolated across New Zealand’s complicated mixed-member proportional system, the most likely result in the 2020 election would see Labour able to form a majority government with just one of those partners.

‘It’s really encouraging to see all of the coalition parties up when we compare the numbers against the last election,’ Ardern told Stuff.

‘We’ve taken on some big challenges but we’re making good progress – I’d like to think this poll reflects that.’

Ardern (pictured with Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall) went under the knife and a general anaesthetic at the weekend to extract an impacted wisdom tooth

National rejected the results, which are markedly different from two polls taken in October by television news outlets Newshub and 1News.

All three polls show Ardern to be crushing opposition leader Simon Bridges on personal favourability – a gulf that Labour will look to exploit during the election year before a poll expected around September 2020.

Ardern is expected to return to full duties midweek before giving the keynote address at this weekend’s Labour conference in Whanganui on Sunday.