Great news...

A bit of a concern that the race based party would hold the balance of power and gift it to Labour.

Agree. Write NZF off at your peril.
It is far too early for Winston to show his hand. They will wait until just before the election, I'd say 2 months to 6 weeks before, they'll pick a single issue, and they will run with it. It will be a 'carzy Ivan' issue, that no-one else saw coming, but it will capture enough disaffected voters to quite possibly get them over the 5% mark.

The polls only really show how the major parties are tracking. But again, given it is 18 months till the election, Labour will get all their unpopular stuff done now, and put the lipstick on the pig closer to the time. 

By the time we get to the election, 99% of people would have forgotten how much of a clusterfuck their covid management was, and how decisions made 6 moths ago (i.e. two years ago at the election) by Grant Robertson have complete screwed basic economic metrics.

It is a tad concerning that 10,000 people in Rotorua can get Te Moari Party elected (with 2 seats) while a party that gets 4.8% of the vote, in excess of 200,000 people would have no representation at all.

"Labour will get all their unpopular stuff done now, and put the lipstick on the pig closer to the time. " You have a way with words Fish ... and the hammer is dead square to the nail.
The political environment is perfect for winston to pull yet another rabbit out of the hat. I'd like to see Matt King's party get some momentum as I feel National under Luxon will be quite the disappointment, and we've had far too many disappointments lately...