Labour started showing signs of desperation yesterday as party spokesmen and women started attacking both National and the Maori Party on the partial sell-down of state-owned assets.
On Sunday, and again yesterday, Labour leader Phil Goff indicated that stopping the sell-down of Meridian, Genesis, Mighty River Power, Solid Energy and a further sell-down of Air New Zealand was a "die in the ditch" policy he would focus on for the rest of the week.
Labour campaign spokesman Grant Robertson called Prime Minister John Key's claim that Kiwis supported asset sales "laughable".
"I don't know who John Key is talking to. New Zealanders are overwhelmingly opposed to assets sales, as polls consistently show.
"Just last week the New Zealand Study of Values Survey 2011 showed 75.9% of respondents were against the Government selling off major assets. All other polls have shown similar results."
New Zealanders knew it made no economic sense to sell the best assets, leaving the country vulnerable to future economic shocks and will lead to power price hikes, he said.
The only people who would be better off will be the overseas companies that snapped them up and the Australian bankers who got to clip the sales process ticket to the tune of $100 million.
"Once these assets are sold there is no getting them back.
"The four energy companies and Air New Zealand are just the beginning. It's no secret that Kiwibank will be next on the block," Mr Robertson said.
Hauraki-Waikato MP Nanaia Mahuta criticised the Maori Party for its stance on the sell-down.
"On the one hand they are saying 'no', on the other hand they are saying 'yes' if iwi want it. They need to make their minds up what they stand for."
Selling the country's SOEs when there was no guarantee those major assets would remain in Kiwi ownership was hugely unpopular among Maori and pakeha, she said.
Any Maori knew iwi did not have the capacity individually or as a collective to purchase a major shareholding of all the assets proposed for sale, Mrs Mahuta said. In addition, not one iwi had sought a mandate from their tribal members to commit their tribes' resources for such a significant investment.
"The Maori party are saying its OK to sell the family house and rent it back to the kids - it doesn't make any sense and they need to stop doing the dirty work for National," she said.
Mr Key has been consistently saying that iwi were natural investors in the assets and could use their Treaty of Waitangi payments to buy shares in the assets as part of their investment for future generations.