Jacinda Ardern has acknowledged Labour contacts supporters and asks them to show up for campaign events, after National's seemingly staged Auckland walkabout hit the headlines yesterday.
Labour's leader was on the campaign trail in Gisborne when asked if her walkabout today was "organic".
"Certainly I can tell you some of my family members were in there and you could see people with rosettes on who support the Labour Party, but otherwise people were just here and came to say hello," Ardern said.
A reporter then put it to her that: "On Saturday your Banks Peninsula office put out an email to all your supporters saying please go out shopping, and be on these streets to say hi."
"We invite people to come and say 'hi' absolutely and you can see that today, so you’ve seen people in Labour shirts, certainly you’ll have seen that in Christchurch people who work with us come and say hello, I don’t often get to say thanks to our volunteers as well," Ardern replied.
Labour’s leader says she wasn’t involved in National’s seemingly staged Auckland stroll so couldn’t comment on any differences between the two parties approaches.
"All I know is when I come out it’s a chance to meet supporters, members of the public, and people who have been volunteering for us," she said.
Yesterday, 1 NEWS political reporter Benedict Collins said the National Party using supporters to pose as members of the public during an Auckland walkabout was "cheeky and clumsy".
The supporters were on hand to praise Judith Collins during a walk through in the Auckland suburb of Ponsonby.
The supporters were on hand to praise Judith Collins during her walk through Ponsonby with National candidate Emma Mellow.
Benedict Collins questioned one of the supporters afterwards, with the man admitting to being "involved in the party for a long time".
Mellow said she has a lot of supporters in Auckland Central who wanted the opportunity to meet National's leader, so she invited them along.
Benedict Collins says the whole thing was "completely unnecessary".
"Cheeky and clumsy are the two words I’d use to sum up what we saw from the National Party today," he said on 1 NEWS at 6pm.
"These political walkabouts are a chance for our leaders to meet real Kiwis and have a chat to them, but today what we saw is the National Party had rigged the whole thing.
"Every 50 metres or so we’d come across another plant who would come up and praise Judith Collins.
"Last week I was in Kerikeri with Collins and she was having a great time out meeting regular members of the public.
"But today what we saw was the National Party just trying to generate a bit of fake news."
NZ First leader Winston Peters called National’s stunt a stitch up.
“Look it's rent a crowd and you're falling for it and with respect, you media are falling for it,” Peters said.
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