Nau mai, haere mai.

With a month till election day, the polls have generally been pointing in one direction for some time. One should always be cautious about their predictive power, as well as the risk of self-fulfilling prophecy, but there’s no denying the Labour Party could do with a reversal of fortune pretty soon.

On the other hand, the left-right contest for power tends to disguise some other electoral currents that might, in the longer term, have more bearing on the country’s own direction. And if National gets to form the next government, Richard Shaw writes today, it will sail directly into a shifting and unpredictable current on the right of New Zealand politics.

In particular, the ACT party has made serious inroads into constituencies National might once have felt it owned, both rural and urban. “Luxon would find the day-to-day management of a National-ACT administration a challenge,” Shaw writes, “much less a minority National government reliant on ACT for parliamentary support, as David Seymour has suggested could happen.”

You might also want to read Susan St John’s illuminating analysis of the Labour-National policy consensus on Working for Families and its implication for the poorest households. There will be more election coverage over the coming month.

But this week we’d also love to hear from you. Please take part in our reader survey to tell us what you like about The Conversation and what we could be doing better. It only takes ten minutes, and we’ll use your ideas to guide future decisions. Until next week, mā te wā.