Campaign Day 1: Clark faster off the blocks

By JOHN ARMSTRONG

Bill English needed to grab the fledgling election campaign by the scruff of the neck yesterday.

Having chosen to launch on Helen Clark's home patch of Auckland - and on the same afternoon as her - he really should have had some explosive agenda-setting item up his sleeve to try to upstage her.

He needed a poll-jolting headline grabber - a real humdinger to get talkback radio humming.

None was forthcoming.

Instead, it was the Prime Minister who offered the more meaty stuff, topping up Labour's 1999 pledge-card with a new set of post-election "commitments".

On closer inspection, some of the commitments are incredibly general - like "work with all sectors to create an innovative growing economy with more jobs".

Another - "tougher sentences for the most serious offenders" - has supposedly already been addressed.

Obviously, Labour's focus-group research shows most voters do not think the brand spanking new Sentencing and Parole Act - the Government's answer to calls to deal to violent criminals - goes far enough.

Keeping a wary eye on its conservative-minded blue-collar vote, Labour is also nervous about the ruckus Winston Peters is trying to stir up over immigration.

Helen Clark mounted a strong defence of existing inflows, arguing that many were New Zealanders coming home, and skilled migrants were essential to transforming New Zealand into a high-tech economy.

But Labour should also be worried by the way genetic engineering is developing as an election issue among its liberal-left supporters.

In going after the Greens with such vehemence, Labour's contrasting stance on genetic modification - supposedly "precautionary" on the release of organisms - instead risks looking like advocacy for their release.

Indeed, the threat posed by the Greens haunted both Labour's and National's launch.

Mr English devoted a good chunk of his speech to persuading National-leaning voters not to vote tactically for Labour to shut out the Greens.

Helen Clark accused the Greens of undermining MMP with their ultimatum to bring down a Labour-led government if the moratorium on the commercial release of GM organisms is lifted.

The Greens will care not one jot.

To be ignored is a worse fate.

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