Prime Minister John Key has been parachuted in to help Mark Osborne defend National's Northland seat from NZ First and Winston Peters.

Prime Minister John Key says he won't be picking up the phone to Winston Peters on Sunday if the power balance shifts after the Northland by-election.

With another poll giving Peters a huge lead against little-known National candidate Mark Osborne, National could lose its election-night buffer and be forced back to trading off its allies, ACT, UnitedFuture and the Maori Party on a vote-by-vote basis.

That would return it to the status quo before election night last year delivered it a near-majority. If Peters wins, NZ First will would gain an extra MP off the party list and National will would lose one vote in Parliament, though it will would still have enough support to win a confidence vote.

Phil Walter/Getty Images Prime Minister John Key with National Party Northland by-election candidate Mark Osborne during a walkabout in Dargaville yesterday. Another poll yesterday put Winston Peters ahead of the National candidate.

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Peters insisted yesterday his winning the seat would not destabilise the Government and said National's scare tactics claiming otherwise were not working up North. There was no reason for Key to pick up the phone to him as National would still have the numbers to govern.

"Northland people can count," he said.

Key was equally dismissive.

He said he had tried to talk to Peters before and the NZ First leader had never been interested.

"I tried to do that with the GCSB [Government Communications Security Bureau] legislation . . . those phone calls don't get returned," Key said.

"He is an Opposition politician. He's quite happy to point out what's wrong . . . generally speaking he isn't interested in finding a solution."

Key cut short a trade trip to spend the final two days of the by-election campaign shoring up his candidate in Northland.

But it was a rocky start to his campaign Northland run after he was confronted by locals angry about run-down services.

As Key stopped to glad hand one voter she warned him: "Don't bother talking to me, I've already voted."

She had given her vote to Peters because of National's neglect, she said.

At the Dargaville market, the story was the same.

Stall holders complained that National had done nothing for the region, and local industry and jobs were suffering.

Pahi local Gail Symes said most of the talk about National during the campaign had been negative.

"We're so far away up here and no one really wants to know you," she said.

Most people were cynical, meanwhile, about National's stump promise to build more bridges.

"I think they want to see it happen first . . . there's been a lot of talk but nothing really gets addressed. They just patch them up," Symes said.

National is throwing itself behind a huge effort to turn out the vote in Northland as it faces a demoralising defeat.

It is banking on turnout favouring National, with Peters lacking the organisation on the ground to round up supporters and make sure they get to the polls. No one is sure, meanwhile, who will be favoured by a strong run of early votes.

But Key acknowledged National was "up against it".

"The real challenge is will those voters actually turn out on Saturday and vote?" he said.

"If they do, we can win the by-election. If they don't we won't."

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