National Party Leader Christopher Luxon says he has been surprised by the misinformation and misrepresentation by Labour on his party’s policies.
In an interview on Thursday morning with Chris Lynch he said “the campaign over this election, frankly, it’s had a lot of misinformation and we’ve seen quite blatant misrepresentation of our positions on a range of policy issues.
“We had the CTU fire out an email, for example, last week to all of its members tens of thousands of members saying we were cancelling the winter energy payment, we’re cancelling sick leave parental paid leave all of those things, which is untrue.”
Luxon said “it’s a real shame because I think this government’s run and the Labour Party is running very negative personal campaign sadly and a lot of misinformation flying around.”
In Christchurch, there are many street posters with Luxon’s face plastered in a negative light produced by the Council of Trade Unions.
When asked if he thought the campaign would be so nasty he said:
“I have to be honest and say that’s been the surprising and disappointing part of the campaign.
“And I just don’t think it helps us have a decent debate and discussion about the things and the policies and plans to take New Zealand forward.
“But it’s sort of understandable. You’ve got a government that’s actually been in power now for six years. It doesn’t want to run on its record because actually hasn’t achieved anything in that period of time. And also doesn’t have any new ideas to take the country forward.”