Dull election? Not with Collins stoking the fire

It does not mean that there is a credible path to power for the centre- right

It’s official. It is no longer a dull election. Judith Collins has brought it alive in the past week and, as Jacinda Ardern put it so aptly in the television debate this week, has become very assertive.

Collins started the campaign with a whimper. She went through the motions but did not look comfortable, convincing or in command.

No one recognised beige Collins. That changed this week. She has gone from beige to orange and almost overnight become the more strident Collins that people had expected.

It does not mean there is a credible path to power for the centre- right and it has yet to be seen whether it enhances the National Party’s dire poll ratings.

Many more people will like Collins’ assertive approach but that approach is also polarising.

She will never compete with Ardern on popularity and Collins’ transformation may have come a little late with voting starting tomorrow.

However, if she can maintain the level of fight she showed this week for the next two weeks, it will be a lively contest.

The fact that both Act leader David Seymour and the National Party leader are gaining momentum at the same time is highly unusual and could be a worry for Labour.

Collins is also clearly trying to appeal to the Christian vote — mentioning several times this week that she is a Christian. It has never been a thing before.

She has also been choosing to go harder on hot- button populist issues — Ihuma ¯ tao, gangs, drugs — and there is a good reason.

National needed a diversion from

That is why it has switched to the naked lure of tax cuts.

its central campaign plank of competent economic managers, and of having a strong team.

Even before Paul Goldsmith’s $ 4 billion error in its fiscal plan, it was not working and its campaign was in trouble.

That is why it has switched to the naked lure of tax cuts.

Tax cuts and a strong leader are likely to be a more effective combination than competent managers of the economy.

The error in National’s fiscal plan was significant to both the plan and National’s reputation as competent, not inconsequential as Collins said.

But it has been a little over- egged. The correction did not require any further borrowing. The upshot is that it would take National a little bit longer to reduce debt than it had planned, still quicker than Labour.

The importance of Labour’s error in its fiscal strategy published on Thursday cannot be overstated in terms of political embarrassment.

National has unsurprisingly overegged the Labour error.

Labour’s was far less significant than National’s error in that it had no impact on the real figures at all.

But it minimises it to call it just a typo when the graph was supposed to show net debt to GDP over 15 years.

Labour would have been very sensitive about having no errors. So it is incredible that several sets of eyes, presumably including Grant Robertson’s himself, did not pick up the fact that net debt was not headed for a mere $ 49 billion in 2034 — as the graph wrongly showed — when it is actually projected to be $ 274b.

The graph was meant to show debt as a percentage of GDP but it was also wrongly titled as simply net core crown debt, so the figures were clearly nonsense.

It is likely to act as a handbrake on Robertson’s effective campaign against National.

“My error wasn’t as bad as your error” is not a winning slogan.

The contest is set to shift to the leaders. Hang on for the ride. It will be many things but it won’t be dull.