KEY POINTS:
3.00pm: Maori party suggests $500 Christmas present
The Maori Party is suggesting a $500 tax free payment to pensioners and poverty-stricken families with children to help them get through the Christmas period.
It has costed the payment at $136.5 million, and the party says it would help the economy as well because people would spend it.
The Christmas gift idea was announced by Angeline Greensill, the Maori Party's Hauraki-Waikato candidate who is trailing Labour's Nanaia Mahuta in the polls.
2.55pm: Ryall gets nod from Key
John Key has named another of the ministers who would serve in a National government if his party wins the election.
Up till today only Bill English had a confirmed post, that of finance minister. But in Tauranga today, the National leader announced Tony Ryall is the man he wants as Minister of Health.
Key says he will not be naming any other potential ministers right now.
2.00pm: Another 'tape-gate' scandal?
Helen Clark has been asked following a walkabout in Upper Hutt today about another secret tape expected to be aired on TV3 tonight, reports Herald political editor Audrey Young.
The Labour leader went for a private interview with the TV network before a stand-up press conference at which she was asked by a reporter if she thought the public were fed up of the tapes.
She replied: "I have no idea but obviously it is attracting your interest."
Previous tapes, recorded at a National Party event in August, have been used by Labour to claim National has a "secret agenda" including the selling off of state assets.
1.20pm: Into the lion's den
Act's Sir Roger Douglas is appearing on Radio Live this afternoon with Willie Jackson and John Tamihere. Eye to Eye host Jackson, a former union official, is grilling Douglas mercilessly for "destroying the lives of countless average New Zealanders" with Rogernomics during his time as Finance Minister in the 1980s.
11.45am: Gentleman's excuse-me
John Key has made a last-minute change to his plans for today after discovering Winston Peters was campaigning in the same shopping mall the National leader was due to go to.
Peters is at Greerton mall, which was due to be Key's next stop. But he has now switched plans and will do a walkabout on the Strand, Tauranga's main shopping street, instead.
A group of National supporters waiting at the shopping mall will now not get to see Key. His minders are saying the reason for the switch was to avoid Peters being given a free photo opportunity.
11.15am: On the road again
John Key has announced a major roading project in Tauranga this morning. The Nats have pledged to complete the Tauranga Central Corridor, which goes from 15th Ave along Turret Rd to the Hairani roundabout in Welcome Bay.
The job will take about six years, at a cost of $100m, to be funded out of the infrastructure budget. "With no tolls", stressed Key.
The Herald's Paula Oliver is tracking the National campaign omnibus today, and their next port of call is the shopping mall at Greerton.
10.30am: Books well into the red
The government has opened the Treasury books today and the news is sobering.
Accounts have turned sharply into the red, with an operating deficit of $800 million for the three months to the end of September, when a surplus of over $900 million had been earlier forecast.
9.25am: Hide brushes off jacket talk
ACT leader Rodney Hide says he will continue to wear his trademark yellow jacket despite the Electoral Commission suggesting it might break election advertising rules.
Today he said he intended to ignore the "ridiculous" letter.
"This is the stupidity of life under Helen Clark. You get told what jacket you can wear. Next she'll be telling me what underwear I can wear," he told NZPA.
8.10am: Key says campaign not place for Maori seat decisions
"My preference is for everyone to go on the universal franchise," National Party leader John Key said on TVNZ's Breakfast programme this morning.
"If you look at entrenchment...that is diametrically opposite to that position."
Labour has already said it would be prepared to back a Maori Party bill entrenching the seats, but Key reiterated he would not rule such a move out, or in, ahead of the election.
"It's a major constitutional issue. I don't think it's something you throw around in an election campaign."
- NZHERALD STAFF, with NZPA and NEWSTALK ZB
