John Armstrong: Single-issue speech not good enough

Another inflammatory single-issue speech - one which borrows ideas from the uncompromising end of the welfare reform argument - will not do it for Don Brash this time. Not on its own.

Tonight's Orewa address must do more than just satisfy the obvious requirement that it be bone-juddering bold so people sit up and take notice.

It must show voters how welfare reform slots positively into National's vision for making New Zealand a better place to live. Otherwise the speech will be dismissed as the gratuitous beneficiary-bashing of a desperate party.

Unlike last year, there must be strong follow-up from National with a string of policy statements to capitalise on any momentum this year's speech generates.

As one of Dr Brash's colleagues puts it, National must start painting distinct choices for voters on the things which really matter. Only then might the polls respond.

Tonight's speech is the first airing of the party's new election strategy pitched at "kiwi battlers" - that crucial election-tilting segment of low and middle-income wage and salary earners currently aligned with Labour.

According to National, these people are annoyed that while they are having to work harder, others are not working.

They worry their kids are getting a pretty ordinary education. The only things they are getting from a red-hot economy are higher interest rates and bigger supermarket bills. They would prefer simple tax cuts to Labour's complicated method of topping up incomes.

National believes these voters' attachment to Labour is consequently not that strong despite what the polls indicate.

Tonight's speech should be viewed as the first step in prising them loose. But it is only the first step.