Mike Williams: Clarke Gayford is an asset to Labour campaign

Mike Williams was surprised to see the Labour Party's campaign planners deploy Clarke Gayford to introduce the PM at the party's campaign

Aucklanders were relieved to see the end of another lockdown this week, but my observation is that we have mostly endured it in good faith and behaved remarkably well.

Face mask wearing in the region now seems to have become widespread if not yet universal, and despite a communications blunder over who needed to get tested at one point, trust in the Government's handling of the pandemic seems high.

It appears at this point that the renewed restrictions were worth the bother and that the still mysterious outbreak of Covid-19 arising in South Auckland has been contained to just one cluster, though it's the biggest one yet.

With daily community contagion numbers steady or falling it appears that the systems of tracking and isolation which swung into action when the new infection was first detected have meant that we have dodged a bullet.

Most of the recent Covid cases were in the South Auckland Pacifica community which is too often characterised by overcrowded housing.

This factor combined with the regular communal assemblies at the many churches that dot the region is a dangerous formula for uncontrolled contagion.

We seem to have avoided this fate and mercifully the suspended election campaign is up and running again, with the political parties getting back to a most welcome normality – promoting their policies and attacking each other.

For connoisseurs of electioneering like me, every battle is different and a novelty in this 2020 campaign is the participation of the partners of the major party Leaders.

I don't think either John Key's wife Bronagh or Bill English's wife Dr Mary English ever said a word for publication and before that Helen Clark's husband Professor Peter Davis limited himself to a few erudite op-ed pieces about his specialised academic niche in health research.

For this reason, I was somewhat surprised to see the Labour Party's campaign planners deploy the Prime Minister's fiancé Clarke Gayford to introduce her at the party's campaign launch at the Auckland Town Hall.

This turned out to be a popular and a successful tactic and his appearance sent an upbeat frisson though the capacity audience. Clarke Gayford is a polished media professional and he gave a short and witty speech which gave the audience a peek at a happy family as he introduced his "not quite wife".

His appearance added a dimension to a very successful campaign launch and having attended all the Labour Party's opening meetings since 1978, I thought that this was one of the very best. Gayford is an asset to the campaign and he was deployed in a measured thoughtful manner.

The same could not be said for the emergence of David Wong-Tung - Judith Collins' husband - onto the political stage.

David Wong-Tung came to the attention of the media last week when he posted some weakly anti-Ardern "memes" on a Facebook page under his own name. Amongst these was the Prime Minister's image tinted green with the caption "The Incredible Sulk".

If you fail to see the humour or even the point of that, you would be joining most commentators who found words like juvenile, boorish, misogynist, pointless and pathetic to describe the posts.

Judith Collins claimed that she was unable to deter her own husband from this kind of inanity but did not deny that she knew of his activities. This incident damaged the "in control" persona she cultivates so assiduously and hints at some snarky pillow-talk unbecoming an aspiring PM in the Collins household.

It's hard to get a handle on the campaign as polls are now far between, but the most recent – a Roy Morgan poll taken "during August" - had National Party support languishing at 28 per cent, close to 20 points behind the Labour Party with New Zealand First and the Green Party making gains.

Mike Williams

It is worth noting that National under the leadership of Judith Collins has yet to reach the levels it attained when Simon Bridges was rolled by his own caucus in favour of the hapless Todd Muller.

An unnerving sign for Judith Collins, and especially her finance spokesman Paul Goldsmith, are the latest findings of a survey by the online accounting services supplier MYOB.

This company regularly polls small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) which, as you might suspect, have been a very reliable voting bloc for the National Party since MYOB's information gathering began in 2011.

National has dominated this poll ever since it began with support reaching 63 per cent when the party was in government led by Sir John Key, but in MYOB's latest poll Labour has pulled ahead with 38 per cent support against National's 35 per cent.

Though a significant percentage express no opinion, 45 per cent of respondents believe the government deserves re-election - an endorsement of Finance Minister Grant Robertson's business strategy and bad news for Goldsmith.

Mike Williams grew up in Hawke's Bay. He is CEO of the NZ Howard League and a former Labour Party president.