Voters still punting in the unknown
Could a poll signal the opening salvo in this election battle?
Alright Bill, you’ve been in the job two months – how are you stacking up? And Andrew. Fair’s fair, you’re not really in the position to do anything yet, but are you still dancing the same jig you must have been, when John Key stepped down?
In the absence of any official polls since Prime Minister Bill English took office – though they aren’t far away – there is little to suggest the tide of public sentiment toward National has gone out with Key. But it seems unlikely to have strengthened, either.
To that end, the next poll could well have a framing effect for the public. A series of runs on the board, followed by own goals on boths sides, don’t appear to have left Kiwis any more sure of who their preferred leader might be come September – not at the shindigs I attend, at any rate.
So what do we know about the two combatants already, that we don’t need numbers to tell us?
Little started off the year well. Incredibly well, actually – better than English in a way.
The Right likes to make much of the fact there was no policy announcement at the joint LabourGreens state of the nation speech, but it wasn’t necessary.
The event was organised – more so than we’ve seen from the Opposition in years, and the result was a powerfully staged performance that relayed a strong unifying message.
Pub convos, for a brief moment, no longer centred on whether Labour stood a chance, but whether English was up to the job.
Then Poto Williams and Willy Jackson had a spat. It was one that could have been avoided but for Little’s own role in it – shoulder tapping Jackson himself and then publicly backing the controversial candidate has left some in the party feeling railroaded. All of sudden: de-unified.
Friday’s $20m promised injection into the Gisborne economy for the construction of a manufacturing plant, is a play to the Maori seat than any move to try and wrestle the East Coast off Anne Tolley.
English has had a steady, but not blinding, start to the year. In his first major speech he put more police on the streets, almost matching Little’s promise of 1000 new cops.
It wasn’t earth-shattering, and in fact it may have flown over the heads of many Kiwis, but his speech on the whole – in which he delved into his personal and family background – broadened English out beyond his role as a stuffy finance minister.
New Zealanders seemed to get a bigger kick out of our Prime Minister the sheep shearer, when English got one up on woolshed hero Sir David Fagan.
Where English has failed to hold steady is in his handling of the devastating blaze in Christchurch. Sure-footedness in a disaster was a hallmark of Key, but English and and Civil Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee have hardly set the world on fire. The scorecards? So far, so drawn. It makes the next set of numbers a defining set, sending the first signal to the electorate as to who holds the momentum, likely gaining them more.
Few, after all, want to back a loser.