Jacinda’s regret: I needed more time

Labour’s bid to win the New Zealand election has hit the wall, with leader Jacinda Ardern saying she needed more time.

Jacinda Adern. Picture: Getty

As the political fairytale of an epic upset in the New Zealand election ebbed away, Labour leader Jacinda Ardern said she had only one regret: that Kiwi voters didn’t have more time to get to know her.

Ms Ardern’s exhilarating campaign hit the wall after opinion polls showed Labour’s vote had collapsed during a week in which Prime Minister Bill English punched holes in her tax plan and she came across as “rattled” during their final fact-to-face encounter of the campaign.

A Newshub-Reid Research poll confirmed last night that the momentum had shifted to Mr Eng­lish, positioning his National Party to win a historic fourth term tomorrow, a feat no government in nearly 50 years has achieved in New ­Zealand.

The National’s 45.8 per cent share of the vote would deliver 56 seats, down four on its present roster but close to a majority in the 120-place Beehive with the three projected seats of partners ACT and the Maori Party.

Labour was still in with a fighting chance when its projected 45 seats were added to the nine that the Greens are expected to pick up.

The poll affirmed that maverick former deputy PM Winston Peters would be kingmaker: Neither the Nationals nor Labour could form government without the nine seats tipped to go to his populist New Zealand First party.

Ms Ardern’s hopes of a convincing victory evaporated when the benchmark Colmar Brunton poll showed on Wednesday that Labour’s vote had crashed by seven points in a week, down to 37 per cent, a figure confirmed by Newshub-Reid last night.

Quizzed about her rollercoaster ride, Ms Ardern said: “The only wish that I would have had from this campaign was more time because I absolutely understand the need for New Zealanders to have had a little more time to get to know me better.”

Labour leader Jacinda Ardern works the phones with a day to go in New Zealand’s election campaign. Picture: Getty Images

At 37, unmarried and childless, Ms Ardern is the youngest person to have led a major political party in New Zealand. She brought ­Labour back from the political dead, reversing a 20-point deficit in opinion polls in the seven weeks since she was thrust unexpectedly into the leadership on August 1.

She also seems to have brought out the best in Mr English, a 55-year- old married father of six, as a campaigner. He has shone on the hustings, shrugging off his image as a colourless successor to three-time election winner John Key, whom he replaced in December.

Ms Ardern refused to concede that she had blundered on tax policy — the issue on which Mr Eng­lish zeroed in — by kicking the can to a so-called “working group” that would decide what Labour would do if she became PM.

Mr English had a field day suggesting Labour would increase income tax and introduce a capital-gains tax on property assets, which she denies.

Ms Ardern said: “There are nuts and bolts … issues that are easier to work through when you are in government. National did exactly the same thing in 2008 with their working group.

“The big difference between National and Labour on that has been that I talked about it during the campaign and they did not. Yes, that means I have been asked more questions,” she said.

Pressed on whether a future capital gains tax could be set by Labour at a rate of 15 per cent or 33 per cent, Ms Ardern said: “That’s why we said we need those experts in the tax working group.”

The dash by Ms Ardern and Mr Peters to polling day was overshadowed last night when a man set himself on fire in the grounds of parliament house in Wellington. He was taken to hospital in a critical condition.