Leaders of five main parties to face off tonight

3.00pm

The public will get their first chance to see the leaders of the country's five main political parties face off when they front up for a TV3 debate tonight.

Taking part are Prime Minister and Labour leader Helen Clark, National's Bill English, Greens' co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons, ACT's Richard Prebble and NZ First's Winston Peters.

Genetic engineering is sure to be a hot topic following yesterday's flare-up between the Greens and Labour on the issue.

Ms Fitzsimons said her party would not support Labour after the election unless it agreed to extend the moratorium on the release of genetically engineered organisms. Previously the Greens had said they would withdraw support next October, when the moratorium expires but frustration at claims they are holding Labour to ransom prompted today's comments.

"What we said initially was that there would be nothing preventing us from giving confidence to a minority Labour government while that moratorium was in place," Ms Fitzsimons said.

"But given that Labour is now turning that into its own words -- which is all about bringing a government down -- I actually wonder whether it would be much more sensible not to let it form in the first place rather than be accused of bringing it down."


She later backtracked, saying she had been "thinking aloud", but Miss Clark did not buy that explanation.

"There's only one message you can take. It's like a declaration of all out war," Miss Clark said.

"The public mood at the moment is very much for no change at the level of government and to then have a small party say 'oh well, excuse me, if we get the balance of power we're going to stop this government even forming' -- there'll be no confidence from the beginning -- I just think that the public will take an extremely dim view of that."

The Greens will release their environment policy this afternoon.

Other topics likely to get a good airing tonight are election standards of education, health and the economy.

The debate will be a good chance for Mr English to make his mark, having been unable to gain any traction against Miss Clark so far, as evidenced in the latest New Zealand Herald-DigiPoll survey; support for Miss Clark increased by more than one point to 53.3 per cent but dipped to 11.7 per cent for Mr English, down from 13.5 per cent a week ago.

However, Massey University marketing Associate Professor Janet Hoek yesterday threw doubt on the value of weekly opinion polls, saying changes were so small it was impossible to tell if support has changed.

Miss Clark will hit the hustings in Auckland before tonight's debate, visiting biotechnology company Virionyx and attending Mai Media's 10th anniversary celebrations at Orakei Marae.

Mr English will head south to Nelson, where he will attend a Grey Power meeting and have a meeting with the Waimea College principal.

- NZPA

Full news coverage:
nzherald.co.nz/election

Election links:
The parties, policies, voting information, and more

Ask a politician:
Send us a question, on any topic, addressed to any party leader. We'll choose the best questions to put to the leaders, and publish the answers in our election coverage.