If you were feeling a little election fatigue before this week, you may now be reaching for the remote, the mute button and possibly something stronger than a cup of tea.

We’ve had the policies, the debates, voting strategies and enough political point-scoring to qualify as an Olympic sport. Voters have listened patiently to arguments about the cost of living, health, education and the economy. All important stuff, of course. But even the most devoted political tragic can only take so many announcements before wondering whether anyone has actually come to fix anything.

Then along comes the gangs controversy. Suddenly, the campaign had a fresh lease of life - although not the sort any party leader, or voter, wanted.

Photographs of Green and Te Pāti Māori politicians at a Mongrel Mob gathering sparked fierce criticism. Labour leader Chris Hipkins condemned their judgement and ruled those parties out of police and corrections portfolios in a potential Government. Then Labour candidate Kerrin Leoni appeared in footage campaigning alongside gang members in Labour-branded clothing. She resigned on Friday.

And just when National may have thought it had a comfortable position from which to criticise its opponents, and boy did they, a photograph emerged of National minister Tama Potaka with Mongrel Mob members at a public hui. Potaka said one gang member was a former schoolmate who had asked for a photo. Christopher Luxon insisted the circumstances were quite different.

Today, photos of Luxon and Erica Stanford at an event around the Abuse in Care report have surfaced.  

Welcome to election campaigning, where every photograph has a backstory, every backstory has a rebuttal, and every rebuttal creates more questions.

The trouble for leaders is that voters expect, and deserve, consistency. It is erratic and suspect to declare a standard non-negotiable on a Wednesday, and on Thursday the following week announce that applying it to your own team requires a more sympathetic interpretation of the evidence.

There are genuine distinctions between attending a public event, maintaining family connections and actively campaigning for votes alongside gang members. Politicians should be able to explain those distinctions. Equally, voters are entitled to question the judgement involved, given gang violence causes real harm to families and communities.

We should also remember that contact with gang members does not automatically mean endorsement of criminal behaviour. Politicians sometimes need to engage with difficult people and difficult communities. The challenge is knowing where engagement ends and political promotion begins.

But the timing is brutal. With the campaign already well advanced, leaders have found themselves defending decisions, distancing themselves from colleagues and answering questions they would much rather avoid. The important conversations have been elbowed aside by gang patches and political photographs.

For voters, the weariness is understandable. Shall we have an amnesty on photos with gang members and be done with it? Come on - let's lay them all out on the table and be done with it. Voters want solutions, not another week of political theatre in which everyone claims the moral high ground while checking whether their own footprints are visible.  

Thankfully, the election will ultimately be decided by more than one controversy. The campaign is entering its final stretch. Perhaps the best promise any politician could make now is a simple one: leadership and positivity. Or as National would say - Stick to the Plan.  

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