Parties shifting into campaign mode

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

Opinion

With the Government’s 2023 Budget behind them and the election just over four months away, the two largest parties seem to be settling down to a war of slogans.

National will continue with its catchy “coalition of chaos” jibe that warns of what would happen if Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori were in charge, and Labour has now responded with its own “coalition of cuts” aimed at National and Act.

Behind the slogans, however, are clues as to how the election will be fought.

At its weekend congress in Wellington, Labour promised to keep the superannuation age at 65 and continue the apprenticeships subsidy, while Prime Minister Chris Hipkins was at pains to stress his “boy from the Hutt” credentials.

National earlier made a major change in withdrawing its support from the medium housing density legislation which it had worked together with Labour on in 2021.

Christopher Luxon threw that under the bus last week in what was seen by some as an affront to deputy leader Nicola Willis, who played a major part in the bipartisan agreement.

Instead, party housing spokesman Chris Bishop — who announced a new housing policy on Sunday — said National would force councils in major cities and towns to provide adequate housing zoning for a 30-year period.

One of the more interesting developments of the past week was the revelation that National had produced anti-government ads using images generated by artificial intelligence (AI), which was news to  Luxon when asked about it.

The use of AI has ramifications of possibly opening the legendary Pandora’s Box of many problems and issues. The “godfather of AI” Geoffrey Hinton has warned of the dangers it could pose and said governments should move to regulate urgently.

The National Party AI ad of masked robbers crashing into a jewellery store under a heading “New Zealand is not safe under Labour” definitely has a strong impact.

It brings back memories of Rob Muldoon’s Dancing Cossacks cartoons created by legendary American animation studio Hanna-Barbera, the first of their kind to appear on colour television, which contributed to a landslide victory for National in 1975.

With or without AI, it is tempting for both major parties and others to use these sort of attack ads that are widely used during election campaigns in the United States.

Although no one’s campaign has been officially launched yet, it is clear that the battle is beginning in earnest. There will be many twists and turns and surprises to come before Election Day on October 14.