Any hopes the government had of a Budget bounce back after the election year tax cuts have been dashed with Labour suffering a shock drop in the latest opinion poll.
Labour's big chance to get back in the running following disappointing poll results over the last few months was Finance Minister Michael Cullen's tax cuts announcement last Thursday.
But May's ONE News Colmar Brunton poll sees National still flying high on 55% with Labour taking a big fall, dropping down to 29% from 35% last month.
Labour has held its ground at between 34%-35% support since December 2007 while National has continued to extend its support from 50% in the February poll to 54% in April.
ONE News political editor Guyon Espiner says it appears to be the worst result for Labour in seven years.
The May poll also shows two other smaller parties making a comeback: the Greens have bounced back up to 7% and New Zealand First is getting close to the magic 5% threshold.
A party needs 5% to be allocated a proportional share of seats in parliament.
Other minor parties are yet to come close to that threshold and would need to rely on electorate seats to remain in parliament.
Assuming they all win their electorate seats, the Maori party gets four, Act two, and United Future and the Progressives one seat each.
Based on the latest poll, National would garner 70 seats and Labour 37.
As for preferred prime minister, National Party leader John Key is ahead on 36%, up 1 point on April, while Helen Clark has dropped back one point to 28%.
Six percent would prefer to see Winston Peters as prime minister compared with 4% last month.