Kate Hawkesby: The whole lead-up to the election so far feels a bit low rent

So a weekend chocka of political campaigning as the parties hit the ground running in the lead-up to the election.  

I don’t know about you but I’m finding the whole lead-up so far a bit low rent. As in, a lot of gutter politics, name-calling, misinformation tactics, and a lot of needless disruption and chaos. And I reckon that puts voters off, so I’m not sure why political parties do it. 

It has the opposite effect of engaging people, I think what it does is make people think they’re all a bunch of clowns and they don’t want to vote for any of them.

 

Brian Tamaki’s Freedoms party has already said it hopes to cause ‘a massive political earthquake’ this election, and they seem intent on doing this by crashing other parties' campaign announcements.  

Newsflash to Brian Tamaki, that’s not how you win friends and influence people. It certainly won’t win them anywhere near the pie-in-the-sky aim they have of getting 15 to 16 percent of votes.  

Freedoms NZ protestors disrupted Labour’s campaign launch Saturday, about 50 of them heckling Hipkins and Helen Clark. That’s after they’d heckled Luxon at a press conference last week, not to mention the hijacking of Hipkins on another walkabout a couple of weeks ago.  

But Tamaki defends all of this – of course. He said, “he doesn't believe people are tired of his party's disruptions.” 

I think a lot of New Zealanders are quite happy that we're standing up for people's rights, for family,” he told reporters. Really? He thinks a lot of New Zealanders are happy about that?

I think after the fiasco of the last few years what New Zealanders are really desperate for is some common sense, some grown-ups, some solid sensible behaviour and some decent leadership.  

I think circus acts are the last thing New Zealanders want right now. When I heard the Freedoms Party were looking to disrupt the National Party’s campaign launch yesterday, and that protestors were already gathering hours in advance, I thought uh oh, another shit show.  

But kudos to National, they got that cleaned up pretty swiftly, there appeared to be no disruptions inside. The protestors did not manage to breach the building, Luxon said they worked hard on their security and registration process, obviously harder than Labour worked given protestors did manage to infiltrate their launch.  

But keeping them out of National’s launch enabled Luxon to make an uninterrupted speech announcing their 8-point pledge. Lowering inflation, growing the economy, tax cuts, building infrastructure, introducing boot camps for serious young offenders, stronger sentencing, lifting school achievement, cutting health wait times, increased support for the elderly - basically assuring people that help is on the way, making the sort of reassuring noises voters may be looking to hear.  

That’s if anyone can hear them over and above the cacophony of sideshows, and some of the sneering media coverage they receive. I think Luxon’s best line actually yesterday was that they as a party can handle 41 more days of attacks, but the country can’t handle three more years under Labour.  

So the Nats seem buoyant – certainly evidenced by their launch yesterday. If they can keep up that momentum, they may yet be able to drown out all the noise from the sidelines. But I have the feeling that for us voters and observers, this is going to feel like a very long 41 days. 

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