KEY POINTS:
The billboards are up - and some have already been torn down - and the bluster has begun.
The election campaign officially kicked off yesterday, with Helen Clark unveiling her glamorous new photograph - and some not-so-glamorous words for her opponent.
National leader John Key was not getting quite as personal, remaining focused on his party's PR strategy.
Clark helped erect the first two Labour Party campaign hoardings at a private home on Sandringham Rd in the heart of her Mt Albert electorate.
She then launched a stinging attack on the National Party after leader Key visited the Otara Markets yesterday morning. "It's not his natural heartland at all, he should have stuck to what he believes and gone to the Northern Club," Clark said.
Clark accused the National Party of "flip-flopping over every issue. They don't appear to believe in anything except winning."
Key said Clark's comments signalled she was set to run "a deeply negative campaign". He said he enjoyed his visit to the Otara Markets, and was "focused on a fresh start, with fresh optimism and fresh hope.
"National has a clear plan to grow the economy, to get tough on crime, to improve our health and education systems, and to control the bureaucracy. I will be campaigning relentlessly on our policies."
The election launch comes as the Prime Minister weighs up her options with Winston Peters and whether she should sack him as Minister of Foreign Affairs. But she brushed aside the suggestion her failure to sack him would tarnish Labour in the polls.
"I am really not getting into making any predictions at all. The election's eight weeks away. We have an overwhelming duty in politics to be fair to all."
Clark said any decision on Peters' future would wait until "due process and natural justice" had finished.
National Party candidate Richard Worth is fuming after his campaign signs were trashed by vandals just a day after they were erected.
Worth is standing for National in the potential hot-seat of Epsom, as is Act's Rodney Hide.
Worth's campaign manager, Aaron Bhatnagar, said National had its signs up just four hours after Clark announced the election. He slammed the vandals as "sad and pathetic".
