Campaign day 9: Snapping at Labour's Achilles heel finally provokes a slap

By VERNON SMALL

Call it a victory of sorts for the Opposition. National has finally grabbed Labour's attention.

For nine days of the campaign, Helen Clark has been criss-crossing the country replaying Labour's hits like a broken record. Neither the N-word - National - nor the E-word - English - has passed her lips.

But under provocation from Bill English's "integrity attack" over Helen Clark's fake artwork, Labour finally began to bite back yesterday.

At a Grey Power meeting in Upper Hutt, Helen Clark seized the chance to attack National's policies as recycled "from the bottom drawer" of the 1990s.

In the Beehive, acerbic Finance Minister Michael Cullen joined the counterattack as he released Labour's economic policy.

National was "the leading minor party", he joked. Its policies were "bumper stickers without cars attached" and youngish Bill English was "simply out of his depth in grown-up issues" - a "desperate little man desperate to make an issue out of nothing".

Dr Cullen, with one of the sharpest minds and tongues in Parliament, has been forced to take a back seat by the presidential-style campaign.

Other than some skirmishes over monetary policy with National's de facto finance spokesman, Don Brash, he has been off the national stage. It is not a silence of Labour's choosing.

They are sure that Dr Cullen will squash National's notional finance spokesman, David Carter, if they meet head on.

But the benign economy has persuaded all the TV channels that a clash of the money men is not sexy enough. A single radio debate is planned for next Monday.

For once it seems it is not "the economy, stupid" that will decide this election. Then again, it might have already done so.

But even as Labour went on the front foot yesterday, both Mr English and Helen Clark started to take the heat out of the fake painting row.

Helen Clark backed off threats to sue Mr English for defamation. In the Deep South the National leader found other issues more relevant.

For now he is confident his "art attack" has boosted his team's morale, punctured Labour's complacency and put him back in the media's eye.

Now it is time to get back to the main message - tactical voting for Labour is a vote for a government which National supporters do not want.

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