Heather du Plessis-Allan: Why Jacinda Ardern will be personally targeted this election

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Opinion

Week one of the political year and the potential shape of the election campaign is already forming.

Expect fake news, or at least allegations of it. Expect a lolly scramble for infrastructure spending. Expect it to possibly get personal.

It shouldn't surprise anyone that a senior Māori Party figure made the first real play of the year. That's largely because the first two big political events of the year are Māori events. So, whoever wants Māori votes, may want to target Rātana and Waitangi for maximum impact.

That first move came from Dame Tariana Turia, co-founder of the Māori party. She didn't pull her punches, accusing the Labour-led Government of stuffing up Whānau Ora, the system she helped to set up. It provoked an immediate response from the Government, which suddenly found $3 million for the Whānau Ora commissioning agencies and also suddenly found time for the PM to urgently meet with Dame Tariana and her four fellow kuia. It was quite the turnaround from the previous position of allegedly not even replying to Dame Tariana's letter. But it was too late, because by then, Dame Tariana had made it personal, accusing the PM of being "out of her depth".

Expect more of that. Labour's pegged its brand to the much more successful brand of Jacinda Ardern, so it doesn't take a genius to realise that targeting the PM hurts both brands. Direct attacks will likely be too tempting to pass up.

Meanwhile, the PM made a play of her own. She's announced Labour's going to run a "factual" campaign, which by implication means they'll probably try to paint National's as the opposite. Cast your mind back and you'll realise Labour's likely been working on this for a while. It possibly explains the song and dance Labour made by complaining to the Speaker about National's online "attack" videos. The videos were really quite mild, but regardless, complaining about them set it up quite nicely for Labour should they want to hammer the line that National's videos are dishonest and misleading.

Whānau Ora Minister Tariana Turia. Photo / Mark Mitchell

It helps, of course, that National has fallen foul of the Advertising Standards Authority on two videos. And it helps that Labour this week signed up to Facebook's transparency tool while National refused to. Truth is, that tool doesn't tell us if an advert's claims are factual. It only tells us who the ad's targeting and how much it cost. But, Labour will know that, because it's called the "transparency tool", it could help to create an impression that Labour's campaign is clean and National's isn't.

And finally, expect big money for anything that looks vaguely like an attempt to rebuild the country. Roads, rail, schools, houses, buses. Labour has pledged $12 billion so far. Expect National to make its own move. Pork barrel or not, the country needs the money so it's a welcome election issue.

Labour's advantage is that it has the jump on the issue. It's the first to pledge the money and, because it's in government, it can get the projects underway. Its disadvantage is its lack of credibility on delivery. Unless Labour can get a shovel in the ground, it can promise as many roads as it likes, but voters may - quite rightly - question if and when those roads will ever appear.

National's advantage is that it has credibility in infrastructure. It was, after all, the party with "a road-building obsession" at the last election. Its disadvantage is that it seemed to be all roads, no public transport.

So, both parties have their work to do in winning votes on this issue.

Of course, we're only one week in. There are 34 weeks to go to September 19, which is the date most have picked for the election. Everything could yet change. Either way, though, if this past week is anything to go by, strap yourself in for a ride.