Closing words hark back to beginning

By Bronwyn Sell

Helen Clark last night took her campaign back to where it began, at a rally in Mt Albert, flanked by her hopeful MPs and walled in with red billboards mirroring her face.

She laid down the same hand she dealt when the campaign began: better public health, more industry support and training, cheaper student loans, cheaper public housing, higher superannuation, a harder line on burglaries, and tax rises for the rich.

"I believe there is a groundswell for change in the country, but it's not in the bag yet," Helen Clark told a cheering crowd.

"I am taking nothing for granted. There must be no complacency whatsoever."

She urged followers not to use their votes on a coalition partner. "If you want a Labour government you have to vote for it."

Prime Minister Jenny Shipley devoted her last big speech to attacking Labour and warning voters about the risk of installing an unstable Labour-led government.

She had billed the speech, to an invitation-only function in Christchurch, as outlining where she wanted a National-led government to take New Zealand in the next five years. Instead, she spent only a few minutes of a 45-minute speech on her party's priorities.

She said voters faced a clear choice: "We are either going to put a government in place that is capable of building a future for New Zealand or we are going to back the wreckers."