Heather du Plessis-Allan: How do we choose if both major parties are much of a muchness?

Minister Michael Wood was forced into a U-turn on cycleways v roads. Photo / Michael Craig

Michael Wood should’ve known better. He should’ve known that making the climate his top priority for how to spend roading money was never going to fly.

Of course, most motorists would hate it. They know what that means. It means doing whatever it takes to force Kiwis to drive less. That’s not a conspiracy. It’s an over-arching goal of Wood’s draft transport plan.

Forcing cycleways on motorists is never that popular, but it’s especially unpopular when potholes are so prolific they’re popping tyres and sending cars to the mechanic. Or, when taxpayers know they face a huge bill to rebuild major highways wiped out by Cyclone Gabrielle.

The urgent need to rebuild the Napier-Taupō Rd and SH25a to the eastern side of the Coromandel (among other major roads) make Michael Wood’s fetish for cycleways an absolute luxury.

So, once the news of his spending plan was out, he should’ve politely declined the opportunity to defend it. But he didn’t.

The foresight would’ve saved him a phone call from the 9th floor. It would also have saved him from then doing the screeching U-turn within seven hours that he was instructed to do, which saw him torching his much-cherished climate credentials as Transport Minister.

Memo to Michael and everyone else in Labour: before you do anything, ask yourself, would National do this? If the answer is no, bin it. If the answer is yes, press ahead with enthusiasm.

Because that is where this election is headed. Straight to the boring, un-radical centre ground.

National got the memo ages ago. That’s why it’s been leading in the polls for a year. It’s been giving the middle voters the middle-of-the-road policy they want.

And this week’s policy is more of the same good stuff. The Early Childhood Education/crack-down-on-consultants policy is so middle-of-the-road that Labour could’ve announced it.

In fact, they did.

Bumping up funding to help parents pay for daycare? Labour announced it in November.

Promising to cut down on the Government’s out-of-control consultants bill? Labour announced it in 2012.

Our two major parties are so same-same they’re even mirroring each other in the polls. If you apply your Swedish rounding, Labour and National are both on 35 per cent in this week’s Taxpayer’s Union-Curia poll.

That’s because Labour’s catching up by mimicking National.

But how do we choose if both major parties are much of a muchness?

It’ll probably come down to discipline, credibility and likeability.

Labour wins on likeability because its Chris is obviously more popular than National’s Chris. In the latest poll, even more National Party voters like Hipkins than those who dislike him.

National wins on credibility because it wasn’t the party that got the country into the economic mess we’re in and it’s the party we always turn to, to sort out our money woes.

It also really doesn’t help Labour that it has wasted so much money fantasising about bike bridges and media mergers, both of which ended up as nothing more than stacks of paper and empty office spaces we just kept paying for.

Discipline is the one we have to watch. Luxon could lose that battle in the election through sheer inexperience. But Labour lost it this week because of mouthy ministers. Wood didn’t help Labour by reminding voters the same old ignore-the-potholes-but-build-a-cycleway nonsense that made Jacinda Ardern popular still captures Labour’s imagination. Willie Jackson didn’t help by defending the $16m he wasted on the merger and signalling to voters that the same old spending that made Ardern unpopular doesn’t warrant an apology.

One thing you can probably bet on is that if both parties are so similar it’s hard to tell them apart, the result on election night might look a lot like this week’s poll. Close.