Tomorrow evening is the last multi-candidate suburban meeting, at Kelburn’s St Michael’s Church hall at 7-30 pm. I’m sorry there are not more opportunities for open comparison.

The widely anticipated second Karori meeting was cancelled under pressure. Oddly you’ll have to read an Auckland paper to find out why. It was reported in the Herald, but not our local DomPost despite the wonderful opportunity to to report on sinister US intervention in Karori politics.

The DomPost seems to have abandoned substantive local reporting on Wellington campaigns in favour of sports-type commentary on the election game.

The DomPost also dropped its own major MTC meeting when their initial hall booking clashed with the Aro Valley fixture.

Now that open comparison is nearly over, and most candidates have spent up to their caps on written material to be circulate, my Labour opponent appears to be the intended beneficiary of a night postering effort that comes straight from the Helen Clark school of politics – smear, make wild allegations, do not worry if they are unsubstantiated – some mud will stick, especially if the target is drawn into rebuttal.

He asserted a few days ago on TV3. 

"We’re trying to run a clean campaign"

I worry that it merely shows how long he worked in the Prime Minister’s office. Mr Robertson’s campaign has been by far the dirtiest of the four local campaigns I’ve been in, based on slurs, innuendo and deliberate misrepresentation.

One of my supporters who happens to be gay described as "evil" the tactics involved in Grant’s attempt to paint me as anti-gay  – which I’m not. The  smear was raised at four ‘meet the candidate’ meetings. Those responsible kept asking questions containing false statements when they already knew the answers.

The sad thing is that no one in Mr Robertson’s team may have anything to do with the postering, but I would now have no reason to trust any denial. I fear that he has taken  a lead from his mentor, Helen Clark. She sticks with Peters despite knowing him so well that today’s revelations by Phil Kitchin would be no surprise. The H fee neutron bomb failed, as did her accusation that  John Key shouts at his family at home, but they presumably still think it works for them.

No election ushers in a millenium of sweetness and light. Politics will continue. But National success will replace a cunning but unprincipled gang, with people who believe there are bottom lines.

National people believe in boundaries that must not be crossed. They guard conventions that must be preserved. The other side may call that naive. I hope the voters will say clearly that the dirty tactics are repugnant.