KEY POINTS:
3.33pm: More room for freight trains
Prime Minister Helen Clark has announced a plan to enlarge tunnels on railway lines north of Wellington to allow more rail freight in and out of the capital. Helen Clark says the project could be brought forward under Labour's economic stimulus package and much of the widening would take place on the Kapiti Coast between Paekakariki and Pukerua Bay.
The tunnels are currently too small for some freight containers, meaning they are having to be removed at Palmerston North and driven into Wellington by truck. Helen Clark says the project will cost around $150 million and will improve journey times, reliability and capacity for freight trains in the North Island.
2.45pm: Ganging up on intimidation
Labour will establish a Commission of Inquiry into gangs and organised crime if it wins the election, Police Minister Annette King said today.
She told the Police Association conference the commission would establish the extent of gang involvement in organised crime.
"There has been a whole range of local solutions put forward to deal with criminal gang activities," she said.
"We need to ensure that any future measures we put in place continue to be effective."
2.10pm: Key revels in Glenn affair fallout
National leader John Key says the latest revelations about Helen Clark and Winston Peters' knowledge of the Owen Glenn donation now "smells like a 7-day old snapper".
Herald reporter Patrick Gower has been on the campaign trail with the National Party leader in Queenstown today.
Key went on to say the official documents released yesterday proved again that Helen Clark had knowledge of Winston Peters getting the donation from Mr Glenn.
"Winston Peters and Helen Clark are in this together and very much regretting that this is getting daylight," he said.
Mr also said he wanted all the documents surrounding Owen Glenn's bid for the Monaco honorary consulship released.
Papers released so far indicate suspended Foreign Minister Winston Peters, whose party received $100,000 from the businessman, actively supported Mr Glenn's efforts.
John Key says it would be very interesting to see all the information, as he believes it appears Miss Clark may have known something about the matter back in 2007.
Herald political editor Audrey Young's election blog on the topic today makes interesting reading, too.
1.00pm: Don't leave town before you see the country
National party leader John Key has told a tourism industry conference in Queenstown that he would personally take up the tourism portfolio if he wins the election and becomes PM.
"Tourism is responsible for about 9 per cent of GDP, and it employs about one in ten working New Zealanders. So aside from anything else it is an industry that is particularly important in maintaining and boosting this country's employment and growth prospects", he said.
"There would be an obvious role for me to use the office of Prime Minister to pro-actively advance the cause of the New Zealand brand by leading our marketing activities."
12.50pm: Health boards are flatlining - ACT
The ACT party are calling for the nation's district health boards to be disbanded and replaced with smaller committees in each region.
MP Heather Roy says it is a farce to have 21 DHBs replicating services nationwide. She added their only job is to implement the Government's health policy.
ACT say they would cut in the number of managers working at hospitals. There would also be a one-off $500 million payment to clear the waiting lists.
12.03pm: Anything they can do ...
Prime Minister Helen Clark has hinted to a Grey Power meeting in Paraparaumu that Labour would look at providing some sort of assistance to people facing financial hardship due to the economic crisis.
Herald reporter Paula Oliver says Helen Clark told the meeting Labour would deliver an economic statement in December, which would include "some transitional assistance for people affected as well, which I will have more to say about in coming days".
The move comes following National Leader John Key's hint earlier this week that his party would unveil a scheme to provide financial assistance to those who lost their jobs because of the international financial crisis.
11.50am: Half full or half empty?
Prime Minister Helen Clark is currently addressing a Grey Power audience at the Southwards Car Museum, near Paraparaumu. Our reporter on the campaign trail with the PM, Paula Oliver, reports that the hall (admittedly a spacious one), is only half-full for today's gathering.
Earlier, Helen made her way north from Wellington via train, and she is scheduled to speak later today at the railway workshops in the Hutt Valley - so obviously this is a day that the government has chosen to trumpet their much-vaunted investment in KiwiRail.
Her other diary item for today is a walkabout at the Queensgate shopping mall, also in the Hutt.
11.25am: It's all about trust. And having good ads.
With less than two weeks before polling day, National is screening new ads challenging Labour's record over the past nine years.
The ads feature negative newspaper headlines on education, health and law and order, and a female voice-over asks the question: "Do you really expect anything to change if they get one last chance?"
Labour fired the first salvo in the war of the Parnell creative agencies, with the 30-seconder that mocked John Key over his positions on KiwiSaver, poking fun at the "two Johns".
That ad finished by asking: "Can you really trust John - or John - in the tough times ahead?"
10.40am: Not the sincerest form of flattery
Defacing candidates' billboards is a pastime with a long history in this country. Almost on the IOC's agenda to be considered as an Olympic sport, one could well believe.
For the most part, the politicos all take it in their stride, as they drive past their wonderful air-brushed portrait each morning only to find it bedecked with a moustache, bushy eyebrows, or whatever (and that includes the females).
But for National's Wellington Central candidate Stephen Franks, it's gone beyond a joke, so he has taken extreme measures, as the Dominion Post has reported today.
In the face of persistent and focused attacks on his hoardings, he's set up surveillance cameras and had volunteers hiding in the bushes hoping to observe the pesky vandals (or, as Franks openly suspects, opposition party cronies) in the act of committing the deed.
10.00am: The Glenn saga resurfaces - again
Winston Peters is back on the defensive today.
He again denied lobbying the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Mfat) to appoint Owen Glenn honorary consul in Monaco, saying he only put pressure on the ministry's "tardy" decision-making.
Official documents released to NZPA yesterday showed an email trail in which he pushed the ministry hard to have Mr Glenn appointed to the position.
Mr Glenn, who is based in Monaco, donated $100,000 to NZ First but Mr Peters had denied there was any connection between that and the expatriate billionaire's lobbying for the post.
- NZHERALD STAFF, with NZPA and NEWSTALK ZB