Prime Minister Bill English has inaugurated National Party's campaign launch on Sunday, August 27, with some seemingly powerful lines in order to get an undiluted approval from media and political commentators - a privilege that is largely missing from many others that the Prime Minister currently enjoys.
"We want to move away from servicing miseries to reducing it," was one such one-liner that received applause from enthusiastic party supporters.
Mr English was referring to young mothers requiring support from the system, though it was said in the wider context of social investment programmes.
"I’m committed to changing the system from hoping those young mothers will turn up looking for help, to going out and finding solutions that work for them.
"Moving from servicing misery to reducing it," Mr English said.
There were many more such lines in about quarter an hour-long speech given at West Auckland's Trusts Arena that sought to elucidate National Party's vision for New Zealand and how it was different from the parties on the left.
The line that in words of The Spinoff's Toby Manhire, "got far and away the biggest ovation of the afternoon" was “Hard working New Zealanders aren’t an ATM for the Labour Party.”
However, despite these many seemingly powerful one-liners, Mr English did not succeed in winning a clinical approval from many political commentators.
The comparison of the speech and the overall vibe at the event with an earlier held campaign launch event of a rejuvenated Labour Party under their new Leader Jacinda Ardern a week ago was inevitable and almost unavoidable.
According to Audrey Young, NZ Herald's political editor, "Bill English's speech to launch National's campaign was vintage English, part brilliant, part boring."
The Spinoff's political editor Toby Manhire found it "solid and unspectacular and down the line."
Similarly, the 2000-3000 party supporters present in Trust Arena, West Auckland, on Sunday, August 27, were found to be "missing in euphoria" and "not bursting the seams" in clear comparison with the Labour Party's campaign launch event a week ago in Auckland Townhall.
Clearly, if the National Party and their campaign managers are being disapproved for being overly focussed on Jacinda Ardern and the Labour Party in their campaign launch, then media commentators could also share the blame, for their insistence in comparing the event with Ms Ardern's campaign launch and arbitrary disapproval of Mr English's performance on Sunday.
In fact, the choice of the venue "Trust Arena" for the campaign launch could be a symbolic choice, suggesting the fact that elections are supposed to be contested within an arena, allowing freedom to all participating contestants of hitting sportingly at each other.
In that regard, National Party has done well in elucidating their vision clearly about the New Zealand, even if it required a taking what Audrey Young calls as "some intermittent negativity on Labour."
Otherwise, how will voters know the difference what the two parties bring to the table in this election?
How voters are supposed to comprehend one same line, "We can do better than this," offered by two different leaders differently - one is the Leader of Opposition, and the other is the Prime Minister of the day.
Ms Ardern has been building an election momentum over some charismatic one-liner - "We can do a lot better than this."
Last Saturday, August 26, Ms Ardern had spoken in front of a crowd of supporters and market-goers at the Otara market in South Auckland.
"We can do better than what we are doing now, we can do so much," Ms Ardern had then said.
Now Prime Minister Bill English has come up with his own "We can do even better."
In this regard, voters would need to hear more on what is the "better" and more believable version, of New Zealand's future.
For now, Prime Minister Bill English has done well in elucidating two different visions of New Zealand, even if in "boring style" and being "intermittently negative on the Labour Party."
If Labour and other Parties of the left have a right to critique the so called "neo-liberal market policy" being enforced on New Zealanders, then the National Party also has the right to propel the sense of "personal responsibility and accountability," that it seeks to inculcate so religiously in every aspect of social policy.
Probably, one line that largely went unnoticed and received least attention from both, the party faithful at the event and the commentators later, but was symptomatic of National Party's claim to fame was "Because National understands the pressures of running a household, paying the bills and saving a bit for a rainy day."
The Labour Party would have to come up soon against this performance by Mr English led National Party team.
Another area that has missed the attention of the mainstream media, again, and rightly though, was the large ethnic representation in the crowd of party supporters.
There was a heavy representation of ethnic Chinese-New Zealanders and Kiwi-Indians in the event.
If counting the number of "Indian looking" faces is any metric then surely National launch had more Kiwi Indians present than at the Labour launch.
However, to what extent will it translate into actual votes on September 23 still remains to be seen.
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