August 19, 1999

National should make public its 'Coromandel polls'

Green Party Co-Leader Jeanette Fitzsimons today called on National MP Murray McLean to "come clean" and release the survey results he claims to have for the Coromandel electorate.

She was responding to a press release issued today by Mr McLean in which he said his own polling results were "substantially different" from a poll carried out by independent market research company Reid Research Services Ltd, which showed Ms Fitzsimons two percentage points ahead of Mr McLean in the seat.

The Reid Research Services poll was commissioned by the Green Party but undertaken by an independent market research company using professional techniques.

"I call on Murray to reveal who did his polls, when, what the credentials of the interviewers were, how many people were sampled, the geographical spread of the respondents, how the results were weighted and what the margin of error was," Ms Fitzsimons said.

"We revealed all this in the Reid Research Services poll results."

Ms Fitzsimons said the only point in Mr McLean's statement that she agreed with was that all parties did their own internal polls.

"When they are not professionally verifiable we keep them to ourselves," she said. "All the Green Partys' own polls have shown it is a close race between Murray and myself.

"We commissioned the Reid Research Services poll because we decided it was about time a neutral and professional survey was done of the electorate and if Murray can not release his polls he needs to admit they were not professionally done."

ENDS

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