John Armstrong: Meeting with crisis in the air

In hindsight, the Labour Party must be wishing it had not timetabled a caucus meeting at Premier House into today's campaign schedule.

What was presumably intended as a routine stocktake of Labour's campaign two weeks out from election day will inevitably take on the appearance of something of a crisis meeting after yesterday's shock One News-Colmar Brunton poll.

Labour's spin doctors last night sought to pre-empt any such impression taking hold by blithely dismissing the TVNZ voter survey as a one-in-20 "rogue" poll whose results were completely skew-whiff.

National has hit a stratospheric 46 per cent in the poll, although the party's eight-percentage-point lead over Labour is seen in both camps as overstating the true margin.

But Labour is clearly worried the poll will dramatically alter the dynamics of the campaign.

The poll is hugely helpful to National in positioning it as a Government-in-waiting for the first time - and one not necessarily reliant on Winston Peters or Act to secure a majority.

National will seek to cement "a ready-to-govern" image in voters' minds this week through the symbolism of a photo-opportunity bringing Don Brash and United Future's Peter Dunne together.

A public handshake is to both leaders' advantage. Dr Brash wants to parade a potential coalition arrangement in front of voters. And Mr Dunne, his party rating poorly, needs to move out of Labour's shadow.

Until yesterday's poll, Labour had been in cruise control, comfortably contrasting centre-left stability against centre-right chaos.

While Labour may try to dismiss the latest poll, it cannot ignore the trend that has seen National take the lead in three of the last four.

Labour is the party which now has to take the risks. The Prime Minister will be the one under pressure in this Thursday's TVNZ leaders' debate - not Dr Brash.

It is the peculiarities of the Brash phenomenon which are posing a headache for Labour.

Much of Labour's campaigning has concentrated on highlighting Dr Brash's faults and failings and the supposed unaffordability of National's tax cuts.

However, while it was expecting National to get a lift from its promised cuts, it is unclear how much that surge in support was driven by tax and how much by Dr Brash's revisiting of the Treaty last week.

The feeling is growing that the National leader's speech on Maori privilege may have made a far deeper impact than was suggested by its muted reception.

National expects Labour will try to deliver a circuitbreaker early in the week, possibly one of the spending announcements it has been keeping in reserve.

But, as a minimum, National is expecting Labour to be far more aggressively negative over the final two weeks.

Will it work?

Labour has done its utmost to portray Dr Brash as inexperienced, untrustworthy and having a "hidden agenda" - a line of attack which has been rewarded by his preferred prime minister rating taking a leap upwards.

Any rethink of tactics by Labour will have to take that into account.