New leader reboots election campaign
"We have seven weeks to change the Government." Labour Party leader Jacinda Ardern
After plummeting in the polls, Labour has tossed out its leader and now has a new campaign slogan.
Days into her new role as leader, Jacinda Ardern unveiled the party’s slogan at a press conference on Friday afternoon.
Ardern was appointed leader on Tuesday after Andrew Little stepped down following poor polling. One poll put Labour’s support at its lowest in 20 years - 24 per cent. Soon after taking up the reins, Ardern, who at 37 is the party’s youngest ever leader, said she would be changing the party’s slogan from the widely derided ‘a fresh approach’.
On Friday, she said the new slogan ‘let’s do this’ meant ‘‘we have seven weeks to change the Government’’. It was also a reflection of what the party could achieve in Government, she said.
Those three words were how she signed off her first Facebook post as party leader, and had been used as the hashtag on many social media posts from the Labour camp since Ardern’s appointment.
The Mt Albert MP, who stepped into the role of deputy leader just earlier this year, has hired Labour veteran Mike Munro as a strategic advisor for the campaign.
Just an hour earlier, Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei held a press conference saying she wouldn’t resign over revelations around her benefit and voting history, but would not seek a ministerial position in a Left wing government. Under questioning, Ardern said she would not have offered Turei a Cabinet position in a Labour-led Government, but said the Greens’ move did not come under pressure from Labour.
During her first press conference as party leader, Ardern said Labour would ‘‘run the campaign of our lives’’.
She also announced Labour’s ‘‘direction of travel’’.
Housing, health and education would continue to be the party’s focus. The party would add policy to housing, education, infrastructure and the environment.
There would be additional announcements with a Ma¯ori focus, Ardern said.
The first announcement would take place on Sunday, addressing key infrastructure. An environmental announcement would take place on Wednesday.
‘‘Everything we do will be within our Budget Responsibility Rules, [finance spokesman] Grant Robertson wouldn’t have it any other way,’’ Ardern said when asked about the party would pay for the additional policies.
She said she was yet to go through the ‘‘depressing exercise’’ of figuring out how much it would cost to re-film ads and create and erect new billboards.
Ardern said she would be the only one pictured on the new Labour Party billboards.
In a bid to engage with voters, especially young people who often don’t vote, Ardern said she would be hosting Facebook Live videos every week in the lead-up to the September 23 election.