Election 2020: Climate change battle lines sharpen as Jacinda Ardern campaign hits Dunedin

Labour leader Jacinda Ardern at the first Labour Party rally since Covid-19 returned in August. Photo / Derek Cheng

COMMENT:

It seemed apt for Jacinda Ardern to release Labour's climate policy in Dunedin today, where the stormy skies did little to deter hundreds of supporters gathering for a rally.

The Labour leader has been sharpening her party's points of difference, and in last night's leaders' debate she portrayed the election as a stark choice along diverging climate action pathways.

In outlining Labour's pledges, she said not every party had a plan around climate change, echoing her dig at National leader Judith Collins during the second leaders' debate when she repeatedly asked: "What's your plan?"

At the time, Collins retorted: "What for, dear?"

The level 2 audience offered a fairly muted response during that exchange, but Ardern seemed emboldened by last night's live audience as she took the climate challenge straight to Collins once again, asking if New Zealand's clean, green reputation was at risk.

Collins said the tech sector was the single biggest climate action game-changer, prompting an interjection from Ardern: "I don't know how data centres are going to help climate change."

Labour leader Jacinda Ardern at the first Labour Party rally since Covid-19 returned in August. Photo / Derek Cheng

It was a stark contrast to the first leaders' debate, where Ardern was comparatively lacklustre and unwilling to talk over Collins.

Ardern reached for the same weapon again today: "If the skies open I'm going to finish on this: We are proud of our clean, green reputation. We trade on that. I will not pass environmental debt on to you."

Around the same time, Collins was in Auckland taking cover from the metaphoric storm dogging her campaign.

For days she has been fending away questions about Denise Lee's ill-judged email that brought with it the spectre of a divided caucus.

Labour leader Jacinda Ardern announcing the party's climate action policies at the University of Otago today. Photo / Derek Cheng

Today Collins faced questions over having National supporters with appropriately adoring expressions placed along the street that she happened to be strolling down.

Her defence was reasonable - that all parties tell their local members when the leader is visiting. But Ardern was more than happy to reveal she had never had supporters placed every few metres along the street.

She wouldn't need to, even if Labour wanted to ensure her every step was met by adulation.

So intense was the placard-waving Labour crowd during her recent walkabouts in Nelson and Lyttelton that Ardern made a mockery of her own campaign slogan to "keep moving".

Even today, when the inclement weather tamed the number of supporters for her Dunedin walkabout, a cry of "Jacinda!" rang out from the seventh floor of a building at the Octagon as she crossed the street.

Labour leader Jacinda Ardern being shown a prosthetic hand during a visit to United Machinists in Dunedin. Photo / Derek Cheng

Interest in the next poll will be high following a much-improved performance from Ardern in last night's debate and the sharpening of Labour's points of difference with National; last week's 1 News Colmar Brunton poll had the National-Act bloc up 3 percentage points.

The other message Ardern reached for in the debate last night was the response to Covid-19, and today delivered a serendipitous gift.

While she continued to offer only elbow-bumps - the only hand she fondled was a prosthetic one during a visit to manufacturer United Machinists - the number of active community cases ticked back to zero.

It seemed timely, then, for today to be Labour's first rally - rain or shine - since the return of Covid in August.