WELLINGTON -- Prime Minister Helen Clark said on Friday her party would rather govern alone after next week's general election than enter a coalition with the anti-immigration New Zealand First Party.

Clark's governing center-left Labor Party has a commanding lead in the polls, but looks set to fall short of an outright majority in the July 27 election, and would need support from smaller parties on key issues.

"I believe that to continue to get growth and jobs, we have to have stable arrangements, which I don't see New Zealand first offering," Clark said on Radio New Zealand (RNZ) on Friday told Reuters.

Support for the Nationalist New Zealand First Party has surged in recent weeks and its veteran leader Winston Peters, said it would be willing to talk with Clark about participating or supporting a Labor-led government. But the prime minister said: "It forms no part of our preferences to go into coalition with New Zealand First."

Clark said she preferred a majority coalition with close ally the progressive coalition party, but if not a minority coalition.

New Zealand first has campaigned on policies to slash immigration and end the settlement of historic grievances of the indigenous Maori -- policies which Clark has labeled offensive and divisive.

"We don't rule anything in or anything out... the reality is that New Zealanders do not trust Labor to govern alone," Peters said.

Labor had finally lifted the "Veil of the purest arrogance that they should govern by themselves", Peters told RNZ.

NZ First has five seats in Parliament and stands at just below seven percent in a Reuters consensus poll.

Under New Zealand's German-style proportional representation system parties must win either a local district seat or five percent of the nationwide vote to be represented in Parliament.

The outgoing Labor-led coalition, which includes the now split alliance, has 59 seats and has governed with the support of the Greens on key issues.

However, Labor has occasionally turned to New Zealand First for support to pass laws opposed by the Greens such as the establishment of a centralized government pension fund.

Labor has labeled the Greens a fringe party because of its stand on Genetically Engineered Organisms (GMOS).

The Greens have said they would neither join nor support any government that does not commit to extending a ban on GMOS that was set to expire next October.

Labor could gain support from the United Future Party but has given no indication if it would talk to the Centrist Party.

United Future leader Peter Dunne, a one-time Labor member, is set to return because he has a safe local seat, but his party is rating only around one percent of the nationwide vote.