It's a reminder of the relative artificiality of campaigns. Many of the real issues are kept offscreen.
No party leader has chosen to do a walkabout at an Auckland open home, to meet and greet first-home buyers forking out eight times their salaries for doer-uppers in distant suburbs, nor with tenants receiving increase notices despite record-low interest rates. Let alone pressing the flesh at emergency accommodation motels crowded with vulnerable families and people with complex needs.
Despite the lack of drama in the main storyline, there is still every reason to cast a ballot. Under MMP every vote potentially counts, in terms of the relative strengths of the parties in Parliament.
And this year the public gets to decide directly on whether the Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill and the End of Life Choice Act will be given effect.
The stakes are high: failure for either of the referenda will put cannabis law reform and/or legal euthanasia for terminally ill patients off the political agenda for another decade.
Opponents of the referenda understand this, and have mounted large, well-organised campaigns, designed to get out conservative supporters and sow doubt in undecided voters based on specific quibbles with the legislation as drafted.
Likewise, those wavering supporters, who want these issues treated as health rather than criminal matters, but feel uncertain about the technicalities, may wish to vote yes. It is easier to fine-tune existing law than to start from scratch in a few elections' time.
The referenda results will not be known until the end of October. That ending, at least, remains open.
Ben Thomas is a PR consultant and former National government press secretary