KEY POINTS:
Labour's dirt-raking will turn off voters, says a leading public relations expert. Dr Claire Robinson, head of Massey University's Institute of Communication Design, said Labour's latest move had left it looking silly because the mud refused to stick to John Key.
"Trying to `shock' voters with a 20-year-old scandal that is, by all accounts, not really a scandal won't make voters change their minds.
"It suggests Labour is scraping the bottom of the barrel," she said.
"The `H-Fee' issue allowed National to plod on with its chosen PR tactic of appearing more `mature' than Helen Clark and Labour," she said.
Key responded with reference to the infamous artistic career of his political nemesis. He said she could not work out what she had signed, and now she was trying to work out what he hadn't signed.
Robinson said it took a decent-sized scandal to rock voter confidence, and Kiwi voters _ 25 per cent of whom were yet to firm their decision _ were typically turned off by common or garden variety muck-raking.
Yet Key's every PR move from here remained crucial, Robinson said.
There was a risk of National coming across as smug as though it was quietly "cruising to victory".
"National needs to show now that it is hungry and it is fighting for it," she said.
