National fighting on economy and law and order

NEW ZEALAND HERALD: National is pledging to focus on the economy, law and order and education in its election campaign, which will see party leader John Key and his caucus put under sharper scrutiny than ever before.

An upbeat Mr Key yesterday welcomed the announcement of November 8 as the election date and repeatedly highlighted the three policy areas during a press conference in Wellington.

He argued that people were struggling with an economy that was in technical recession, they felt unsafe because of violence in their communities, and they were worried too many children were leaving school without the literacy and numeracy skills they needed.

"They are the issues that New Zealanders talk to me about day in and day out," Mr Key said.

"This is a Government that, when it comes to the gas tank of ideas, it's run out of gas. It's empty."

Over the next eight weeks Mr Key will go through his first election campaign as leader and his wider caucus will also come under scrutiny.

After a fortnight in which National has been embarrassed by having several of its policies released by Labour, questions remain about how ready the caucus is for the campaign.

The policy documents that have been released by Labour are understood to have been sent to National's MPs by email - despite the party's problems with email leaks which last year led to Nicky Hager's bombshell Hollow Men book.

National has now stopped sending internal policy documents to its caucus by email, although it insists the problems of the past fortnight are nothing to do with an email going astray.

Nobody in the caucus has owned up to leaving a folder of documents behind anywhere.

Mr Key yesterday shrugged off the concerns and said his caucus was "absolutely ready" for the campaign.

"We've got a team pound for pound that is far superior to any other political team in Parliament."