Wellington, April 5 NZPA - National is continuing to ride a post-election wave of support, according to the latest poll.

The TV One News Colmar Brunton poll tonight put National on 57 percent support (up 1 point) compared to Labour on 31 percent support (up 3 points).

The Green party was on 7 percent (up 1 point), while ACT and the Maori Party hovered around 2 percent support.

At the election National received just under 45 percent of the party votes, Labour 34 percent and the Greens 6.7 percent.

The new Labour leader Phil Goff was the preferred prime minister of just 6 percent of those polled, his predecessor Helen Clark recorded 9 percent and Prime Minister John Key was backed by 51 percent.

Of those polled, 42 percent said they felt the economy would improve this year, 19 percent felt it would stay the same, while 39 percent thought things would get worse.

Television New Zealand did not broadcast details of the poll, but it is usually of 1000 votes with a margin of error of 3.1 percent and taken over the week prior to the polls's release.