Election campaign gets dirty

Despite public distaste for feral politics commentators say the 2005 election campaign is shaping to be one of the nastiest ever.

The Greens yesterday likened Winston Peters' policies to Hitler's and warned of "ethnic cleansing", while Labour painted Don Brash as increasingly Muldoon-like and "desperate for power".

Acting Prime Minister Michael Cullen told the Herald on Sunday that "dirty and desperate" tactics were emerging. "It wouldn't at all surprise me if the Nats and Act have got private investigators out around all of us at the present time, the way they're carrying on."

Recent polls showed voters needed to think about the possibility of National winning the election, he said. "Everybody's assumed Labour's going to win. And now people might start thinking about whether that wouldn't happen. They've got to think about what the National-led Government would look like and what it would do."

Green co-leader Rod Donald told his party's election-year conference in Christchurch yesterday that Mr Peters was a "snake oil merchant".

"Peters is the ugly face of New Zealand politics, all the more so because he is smart enough to know that his proposed 'flying squad' searching the homes of 'undesirables' echoes Hitler's Germany," he said. "It's no coincidence that the leader of the National Front has quit politics - NZ First has stolen their policies. How far would Don Brash pander to Peters in his one desperate bid for power? Treasurer and deputy PM? Dawn raids? Ethnic cleansing of Asians and Pacific Islanders? Australian-style detention centres?"

Last night Mr Donald was not worried that voters might be put off by the personal attack, saying they would recognise the comparison as true.

Mr Peters bit back: "He's a sad chap ... He's just about to head off with his colleagues to oblivion and he's trying to find some headlines."
And Act leader Rodney Hide said the comparison was an insult to the victims of the Holocaust.

As the insults flew, Dr Cullen almost entirely ruled out a July election, and said the election campaign would allow time for voters to consider the government spending cuts that would be the price of any tax cut proposed by National and United Future.

"It's not simply a tax cut, it's tax cut versus cuts in health, education, law and order and superannuation. And we're very happy fighting that fight."

He also compared Dr Brash to Robert Muldoon in his willingness to cut taxes and run up debt.

"I wouldn't be surprised to see him, gradually over time, become a lot shorter and a lot wider."

Dr Brash acknowledged a real battle - "for the hearts and minds of mainstream New Zealanders" - had been joined.

He also attacked Mr Peters, saying the NZ First leader's refusal to "tell us which way he will jump" meant that a vote for him would not guarantee a change of government.

Prime Minister Helen Clark, who flies back into the maelstrom from Japan today, told journalists she did not think voters were in a mood to change the Government, despite an NBR-Phillips Fox poll on Friday showing National on 38 per cent, a point ahead of Labour.

That poll showed NZ First on 12 per cent, allowing Mr Peters to hold the balance of power.

"He's made his run early this time, and if you make your run early you can peak early and come off it," she said.

Political commentator Chris Trotter said the campaign could become the muckiest since at least 1975 - when Muldoon came to power - and possibly ever.

He blamed the right-wing parties for beginning the dirt-digging.

But he said Labour was now on the ropes, "and when Labour gets desperate it tends to get dirty".

Sir Robert Jones, who in 1984 led his New Zealand Party through one of the dirtier election campaigns, said the next few months were shaping up to be muckier still.

"It just bothers me a bit, because you can just smell it, it's going to get very ugly.

"It sounds a bit puritanical because I was pretty outrageous years ago and I'm not happy about that - but it never got like this. There was always an acceptance that everyone had their foibles."

The maverick businessman and political observer, who will be writing a column for the Herald on Sunday during the election campaign, said National was now in a position to win, and he also believed Act would be returned to Parliament.

- Herald on Sunday