National ‘full of lies’ as polls flip

Labour Party leader Jacinda Ardern has hit out at the National Party, calling them ‘‘desperate liars’’ as hostilities ramp up on an increasingly acrimonious campaign trail.

A clearly angry Ardern said an ad campaign by National which attacked Labour over tax was ‘‘full of lies and scare mongering’’.

The Labour leader’s comments follow a shock Newshub-Reid Research poll suggesting the party’s momentum has stalled, amid signs National’s unrelenting attack on tax are gaining traction.

The poll had Labour adrift of National, slipping 10 points behind National at 47.3 per cent to 37.8 per cent. National had climbed four points in the poll suggesting the mood for change unleashed by Labour’s change of leadership may be running out of steam.

But the polls have been hugely volatile and internal party polls appear to show voters chopping and changing their vote to an unusual degree, so the election is still anyone’s game.

Labour has been under siege over its tax plans, with National capitalising on uncertainty over its intentions by claiming it plans to introduce a raft of new taxes including a capital gains tax, land tax, inheritance tax, income taxes, water taxes and others.

Labour has ruled out many of them, including raising income taxes and a capital gains tax on the family home, but has failed to get traction on its denials, in part because Ardern has deferred many decisions to a tax working group once Labour is in office.

National’s new ad campaign is titled ‘‘let’s tax this’’ and claims new taxes on a huge number of goods and services under Labour.

Speaking in Nelson yesterday, Ardern said she was calling National out on its ‘‘lies’’ and ‘‘scare mongering’’ and the New Zealand public deserved better from National. ‘‘I will run an open and relentlessly positive campaign but they need to start running an honest one,’’ she said.

Ardern also lambasted National over its record, accusing them of letting New Zealand ‘‘drift’’ over nine years and doing nothing to solve multiple crises, including housing and child poverty.

She said Labour’s families package would benefit more families than National’s tax cuts.

‘‘We will be able to reduce poverty ... and we won’t wait nine years to do it.’’