Campaign diary: Audience of none for Act duo

Act two, seen no-one

What if you held an election and no one came? Act deputy leader Ken Shirley and list MP Gerry Eckhoff held a coffee meeting with West Coast businesspeople, but only a newspaper reporter turned up.

"I'm disappointed, but not surprised," Mr Shirley said, adding it was held at a bad time. He was more surprised to find his party did not register on a poll of the West Coast/Tasman electorate. But Act is campaigning for the party vote only, endorsing National's Barry Nicolle for the electorate.

Minor parties rising, Labour down

The latest TV3 NFO poll shows some of the gloss coming off Labour's huge lead. But it is the minor parties reaping the benefit, not National. Labour's support was down 5 per cent at 51 per cent, but National was unchanged on 24 per cent. The big movers were the GE-unfriendly Greens on 11 per cent, up 2 percentage points, and New Zealand First on 5.7 per cent, up 2.6. Act was bang on the 5 per cent threshold needed to secure seats in Parliament, up from 3.9 per cent in a similar poll in early June. The poll of 1000 was taken between June 27 and June 4 and has a margin of error of 3.1 per cent.

A week of retreats

Jeanette Fitzsimons' rapid u-turn, after threatening not to allow Labour to form a Government unless it extended the GM moratorium, was the second retreat for the Green co-leader in the past week. The other was to prepare for a busy week, including last night's TV3 leaders' debate.

Labour London-bound

Add Labour to the parties cultivating the overseas vote. English-born Christchurch Central MP Tim Barnett is off to London for two days to push the message to the estimated 100,000 New Zealanders in London who are entitled to vote. While he is there, Barnett will take part in an inter-party debate hosted by expats' newspaper NZ News UK on July 10.

They said it:

"The Treaty industry is a bloated leech that is gorging itself on a geyser of public money that Labour and National have seen fit to squander - but that has brought no significant benefit to Maori." - Winston Peters.

"It is now the law of the land that you can do one crime and get the second one for free. This is an outrage." - Act leader Richard Prebble attacks sentencing laws outside the pizza parlour where teenager Marcus Doig was murdered.

"It would not be imposed as new taxation." - Finance Minister Michael Cullen says a possible health tax would replace an equivalent amount of existing income tax.

"The only reason you ring-fence a tax is so you can increase it." - Bill English says Labour's plan to investigate a ring-fenced health tax will see taxes go up.

Where the leaders are:

Helen Clark does a walkabout in Hamilton and speaks at a Grey Power meeting.

Bill English campaigns in New Plymouth before heading to Wellington for the National Party conference.

Green co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons spends the day in her Coromandel electorate.

Winston Peters stays close to home, campaigning in Tauranga.

Jim Anderton campaigns in Palmerston North and Wanganui.

United Future leader Peter Dunne addresses a youth conference and visits a childcare conference in Christchurch.

Alliance leader Laila Harre attends a forum on family violence in West Auckland.

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