Voter’s choice: Ardern’s
Jacinda Ardern and Bill English have perfectly defined what they are offering in the last two weeks of the campaign — hope vs a plan.
She says she is offering hope. He says he is offering a plan.
While neither is mutually exclusive, both leaders chose to highlight those respective concepts last week as the essence of what they are offering voters, and both are pitched perfectly.
Ardern’s message of hope can mean all things to all voters. It can be aspirational and inspirational.
It suits a party that decided earlier this term that there was no point coming up with screeds of policy like the 566-page manifesto of the 2014 election.
It has policy but much less of it and the most controversial issue of all, a capital gains tax, has been repackaged as an agenda item for a tax working group.
Ardern’s promise of “hope” is intrinsically tied to her warm and sunny nature and that is why National has no show of successfully attacking it.
Ardern need make no changes to her campaign to put Labour in the box seat to form the next Government.
Labour is still in a pinch-me space — barely able to believe that Ardern has taken the party from hopelessness 42 days ago to the brink of Government in just under two weeks’ time.