THE PRESS THURSDAY, JULY 23, 1987. Now the battle commences

Press, 23 July 1987, Page 12

THE PRESS THURSDAY, JULY 23, 1987. Now the battle commences

In a sense, campaigning for next month’s General Election began with the economic summitry that followed hard on the heels of the 1984 election. The “opening of the books” had a sizeable dollop of public relations attached and little opportunity was lost for political point-scoring. Once the date for the election finally was announced, things started to heat up and the two main protagonists seemed to be conducting election campaigns in everything but name. Now that the National Party has launched its campaign officially, and the Labour Party is about to launch its own, the phoney war is over and battle can begin in earnest. The National Party hopes that it will steal a march on Labour by starting a week earlier, though a fair measure of the presumed advantage is negated by the reliance that both parties are placing on television as the main means of presenting themselves to voters. One consequence for National is that, although the campaign was launched with a big rally at Hastings on Monday, the party’s television offensive begins on Sunday in Christchurch with what amounts to a second v campaign launch. Labour follows at the same venue about 30 hours later; so, on television, National’s edge is eroded to one day. National, behind in the polls and showing a certain lack of cohesion in some of its efforts to date, might have been expected to exploit this week to the fullest. Whatever accuracy is accorded the various public opinion polls, one point seems universal: a large and politically important number of voters declare themselves to be undecided. Although probably more than half of these

people will not vote on election day, the “don’t knows” offer worth-while rewards to active campaigners. The number of "don’t knows” is substantial, considering the nearness of polling day. Trying to persuade some of these voters to support National’s drive for office would have seemed to be a more profitable use of the time than razzle-dazzle rallies with the faithful.

Razzle-dazzle there was when National’s leader, Mr Bolger, started the bail rolling at Hastings, but of new policy or detailed manifesto there was nothing. A catalogue of woes under the present administration is a useful list to start with, but only as the reference point for a catalogue of cures. There can be few people today unaware of the problems for New Zealand in record inflation, high unemployment, large overseas borrowings, and a public debt of more than $40,000 million. Any of those people who hoped for some comprehensive prescription to deal with these problems would have been disappointed.

In the lead-up to the election campaign, voters were treated to occasional diversions as first one party then the other managed to do itself political harm by fumbling or stumbling over controversial issues. These embarrassments encourage politicians to concentrate more on personalities than policies, and to rely more on telegenic gimmickry and arranged photograph sessions than on detailed presentations of their platform. The parties might find that reliance on a campaign of colour that lacks substance risks a negative reaction from frustrated voters.