Empire strikes back with blistering reminder of Peters' past

By VERNON SMALL

The story of the campaign so far has been one of minor party gains at the expense of the Big Two.

The Greens are nudging 10 per cent. Act is over the 5 per cent threshold.

New Zealand First has hit 8 per cent on the back of Winston Peters' three-fingered salute - crime, the treaty and immigration - and his Bob the Builder chant, "Can we fix it? Yes we can".

Now, with a week to go, the Empire is striking back. National and Labour have held back a sizeable chunk of their advertising budget for the final blitz, aiming to sway the large number of voters who decide at the last minute which way to jump.

How well the smaller parties can resist the onslaught will finally determine whether Labour can govern alone.

On the hustings, Helen Clark has abruptly broadened her attacks from the Greens and their threat to "ankle-tap" the Government over genetic modification into a full-scale assault on "the politics of the fringe".

With the simple slogan, "Once bitten, twice shy", her campaign radically changed gear on Thursday in a speech in Peters' Tauranga electorate.

The Greens frustrate Clark with their unbending opposition to GE and what she describes as "fantasy policies" on growth, trade, foreign affairs and superannuation. ("Nice people, but not ready for Government.")

They will not escape her attacks over the last days of campaigning on her quest for the Holy Grail - a majority.

But the Greens, in the end, are on her side of the political divide.

Not so Peters. Until that moment in Tauranga, Labour had benignly ignored NZ First and accepted its broad indication of support on confidence and money supply votes. But Peters' electoral support has gone too high for Labour's comfort.

Some is drawn from blue-collar voters who back his mix of liberal economics and conservative policies on crime, immigration and the treaty - Muldoon's "Rob's Mob" and those who had more in common with former Labour leader Mike Moore than the liberal left of Labour.

Clark's strategy does carry risks. Without a huge lead over National she might be more cautious about driving Peters back into the centre-right camp.

But his messages are anathema to key Labour sub-tribes - Maori, the unions, immigrants and the liberal left.

Clark had to bite back.

As the unions weighed in she counter-attacked, reminding the electorate of Peters' history: he backed National in 1996; has been twice sacked from Cabinet; took weeks to negotiate a coalition and opposed union-friendly measures such as the Employment Relations Act and paid parental leave.

It took Council of Trade Unions president Ross Wilson to bring the left's attack into clear focus: "We want a centre-left government, and NZ First is not centre-left."

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