Editorial: Parties have spoken, now it's our turn

File photo / Martin Sykes

Opinion

Unlike the National Party in Epsom, this column will not try to tell readers which candidate or party to vote for in tomorrow's general election.

After a tight month of campaigning and extensive coverage of the policies, personalities, character and points of difference between the parties, we believe voters should be true to themselves and select the party and candidate that, on balance, they support.

Attempts at tactical voting are double-edged swords that can bring the MMP electoral system into a level of disrepute it does not deserve.

All major public opinion polls show the National Party likely to win the largest percentage of the vote, well above Labour.

If this trend is sustained tomorrow, National will either be able to form a government on its own or be first to set about forming governing arrangements.

In previous elections the most successful party has gone on to form the government, and that is likely to happen again.

In theory, the alternative would involve Labour allying with the Greens and New Zealand First and the Mana and probably Maori parties to overwhelm National's claim to govern.

Even if the numbers were to line up for this four or five-party grouping, the fact that New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has repeatedly said he would not back either Labour or National would seem to consign Labour's ultimate chances to naught.

Apart from the core theme of stopping asset sales, it is hard to escape the view that Labour approached this campaign as a policy and leadership staging post for 2014. It never made ground on National, and leader Phil Goff could only chip away at John Key.

It produced policies for a capital gains tax, compulsory KiwiSaver and raising the age for national superannuation, defying historic public opposition - only to have its share of the vote fall from the early 30s to late 20s.

Labour has set its policy compass for another time, no doubt with another leader, and must hope its share of the vote tomorrow finds respectability above 30 per cent.

New Zealand First has been a beneficiary of Labour's travails and National giving Mr Peters a platform to save older voters from Mr Key's dismissive form of political euthanasia. The Greens have campaigned almost impeccably, increased their support and should have a larger, loud voice.

Act's political meltdown started in the last term and continued through a dire campaign. The Maori Party stands to hold all its seats.

National's campaign has been almost cringingly focused on Mr Key, his face ubiquitous in the way of African despots and Gulf royal families. Even Act clung to "brand Key". National kept its pledge to put asset sales to a public vote and will invoke increments of the welfare reforms from its working group's report.

In government, it faced a confluence of domestic hardship and international economic stress unseen for generations. It managed its way through but inspired few - even business leaders - in this campaign with its "plan".

It remains constrained by Mr Key's pledges not to change entitlements to national superannuation and to keep Working for Families and interest-free student loans in place. Again, only incremental change is promised.

The public give Mr Key's team the benefit of the doubt. His personal appeal has been tarnished more by his own misjudgments than by attacks from his opponents. Like so many incumbents he has lost some of his cachet, the "smiling assassin" nickname losing its smile, his party and colleagues jaded by three years in power but still riding high in the polls.

It has been a short campaign - short on inspiration from both ends of the spectrum and unconvincing that the aims for our future expressed in political slogans can be achieved.