Kate Hawkesby: If this election is going to be about middle swing voters, the left’s tactics will lose them

So the Nat’s tax plan – is good – and we know it’s good for two reasons, one, because of all the positive feedback it’s had, and two, because of how ropeable the Government are about it. 

 They are dark on it because they know they’ve been badly exposed here, by a sensible party doing sensible things, which reeks of common sense.  

It reminds us just what common sense feels like - a distant memory for most of us politically these days let’s be honest.  

But the left are increasingly angry – they’re on the ropes and you can feel it. 

They’re alleging all sorts of crazy and negative claims against the right, they’re starting to look unhinged. Cue the government’s cheerleaders stage left - the Unions.  

Now here’s where this whole thing’s going to come unstuck and it’s all going to backfire on them.  

Yesterday the CTU launched an attack ad on Luxon – by mistake, it apparently got launched early by mistake.  

But it was a digital billboard with a big close-up picture of an angry looking Luxon, with the caption, ‘Out of touch, too much risk.’   

The ad has since been removed – but it’s a signal of what’s to come and where the left’s heads are at; fighting dirty.  

NZ Council of Trade Unions president Richard Wagstaff authorized the billboard, but the ad agency put it up before the Union itself had signed it off. It’s scheduled to run next week.  

And here’s what voters should be worried about, undecided voters, of which there are tons, don’t tend to like dirty tactics - women in particular don’t like it.  

They don’t like personal attacks and name calling, and this is what this whole campaign is. 

If you are someone who’s paying union fees to the CTU, how do you feel about them spending money on this sort of negative highly personal style attack?  

How do you feel about the Unions tight and perhaps now blind allegiance to a government that’s pumped up your cost of living and delivered you very little?  

The CTU’s time and energy and money would surely be better spent on initiatives, ideas or policies that could advance the plight of its members.  

There seems increasingly no separation between the Labour government and the CTU - both seem blinded by the same ideology, both seem out of step with the people who prop up their coffers.  

Why are members fees not being sheeted towards billboards demanding better working conditions, policies that work better for them, new ideas around how to get real traction on solutions around pay and conditions.  

For a government that campaigned last time on kindness and hugs and teddy bears, how do they justify this time round going so rogue? So gutter? So scrappy?  

Even members of Labour’s own support base are abandoning them. As the left’s very own Chris Trotter pointed out the other day, this government has been so divisive, that it refuses to now work with anyone who ‘doesn’t embrace Labour’s radical social agenda.’  

Trotter wrote, ‘once celebrated for its broad inclusiveness, Hipkins’ party has opted to greet potential supporters with a grim pair of ideological bouncers.’ 

Trotter suggests that ‘those who balk at co-governance, or reject trans women competing against biological women in sport’, are ‘no longer welcome inside Labour’s ‘big tent’.  

The party’s broadchurch is increasingly, I reckon, looking like a narrow field of radical ideologues and rabid attack dogs, who when cornered, can only bite back and fight dirty.  

If this election is a fight for the middle swing voter, then I think this tactic of the left is a sure-fire way to lose them.

Kate Hawkesby is a political broadcaster on Newstalk ZB - her articles can be seen HERE.