That’s got to be the hardest part of Labour’s election campaign dealt with, doesn’t it? 

Tax was looming for them as potentially quite a big problem, especially when you consider the brief impact on their campaign last time around with capital gains tax.  The moment Jaincda Ardern promised a Capital Gains Tax, her polls started falling away spectacularly. 

And the threat of that was significant this time given we are all quite aware of the debt Labour is racking up and the fact that it has to be paid back somehow. 

But this tax policy, as I said earlier, is so timid it can hardly be expected to lose them a signification number of votes.  

Actually, Labour is having a great campaign. If you count Monday as the campaign start date, they have been dominating. 

The Matariki policy announcement was just controversial enough to dominate the headlines, and yet populist enough to probably win the favour of the majority of Kiwis.  

The small business package yesterday was inoffensive and actually did address business concerns, especially when it comes to the cost banks impose on retailers.   

In both cases, business representatives were happy to front up and declare their love for it. Tourism operators in the case of Matariki.  Retailers yesterday. 

And then the tax announcement today.  Highly anticipated, massive relief to those expecting huge tax increases. 

But the most important thing in all of this is that Labour has managed to drown out the opposition.  The opposition’s policies are perfectly reasonable and well thought out – addressing the P scourge, rebuilding Hawke’s Bay hospital – but there’s nothing particularly jazzy about them, so they have failed to bust through the headline dominance of labour at the moment. 

Spare a thought for NZ Frist and the Greens, who really are the biggest victims of Labour's headline dominance.

All in all you’ve got to say, Labour is surprising on the upside, especially centre voters.  They are straight out of the blocks and nailing this campaign.  If they carry like on this, they will be very hard to beat.