But even before it had begun properly, Bill English was dodging questions about his dishonesty over the Todd Barclay affair. Perhaps the most damaging part of the scandal was when National made up a false Police complaint about media harassment.
Additional information about questionable NZSAS operations in Afghanistan then came to light, and the National led government again refused to launch a public inquiry. This failure was soon followed up by a number of high-powered lawyers launching legal proceedings on behalf the families of murdered Afghan villagers.
Winston Peters then went on the warpath after his private pension details were leaked to certain media outlets. A cleared Ministry of Social Development and Internal Affairs means only someone from inside the National party could be the leaker.
A week after the mother of all scandals backfired, Steven Joyce started digging himself a hole when he accused Labour of having a $11.7 million mistake in their independently audited fiscal plan. This claim turned out to be entirely untrue and is one of the reasons National has declined in the polls.
Paula Bennett also tried her best to kneecap National’s leader by making an ill-conceived tough on crime announcement that English had to immediately backtrack on. The deputy PM then followed up with more incompetence by lying about Henderson High School having a drug and gang problem.
Then the revelation that Jian Yang taught Chinese military spies was badly defended by National and their propagandists with a number of dog whistles about racism. Many voters will be concerned with the security risk the National MP poses to New Zealand, which will likely mean more lost support for National.
But to add insult to injury National's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Murray McCully, was also recently caught out lying about MFAT's legal advice concerning an $11.5 million bribe paid to Saudi businessman, Hamood Al Ali Al Khalaf. Clearly this is yet another excellent example amongst many of why the National party deserves to lose this election.
