Andrew Little now wears contact lenses and Bill English turned up for photo ops at Downing Street wearing an extremely smart tie. It's election year, all right.
Labour leader Andrew Little has taken to wearing contact lenses. Photo: RNZ / Aaron Smale
Everyone loves to moan about the focus on personality and appearances in elections, but why? Because we'd rather be high-minded and ignore such things?
Voters don't, so why should politicians?
Bill English appeared at 10 Downing Street wearing a smart tie, to meet with British Prime Minister Theresa May. Photo: AFP
Besides, we should demand that our political leaders make themselves likeable and interesting, because it's good for democracy. The better their communication skills and the more we're engaged by them, the more we will listen, watch and talk about what they're talking about. The more we will care.
That doesn't mean they have to be Donald Trump, not that there's much risk of it. English and Little couldn't turn themselves into demagogues if you bribed them with the wealth of a dozen Russian oligarchs, and I mean that in the nicest possible way.
I doubt we'll see much Trumping from our other political leaders either, including Winston Peters.
He knows, like all party leaders know, that MMP pushes politics to the middle. Its covenant, to the frustration of radicals on both the left and right, is that we will get very little major reform but nor will the country be run by extremists and narcissistic nutjobs.
MMP also helps ensure no socio-political forces of any scale are shut out of the political process, while our size and informality mean that compared to the US the political process is not far removed from ordinary life. There's no swamp to drain.
President Donald Trump signs Executive Orders in the Hall of Heroes at the Department of Defense in Virginia. Photo: AFP
Mind you, until very recently many Americans thought that Trump couldn't possibly rise to power there either.
Explanations abound, but there's a real sense in which his success defies logic and experience: robust democracies are simply not supposed to deliver such monstrous outcomes.
Trump sits at the very edge of the imagination: he's like the creature from some hideous black lagoon, poised to wreak horror on the local village. Maybe they should have had better defences against a swamp monster, but could they really have defended themselves against something they didn't know existed?
Besides, this monster has cast a spell over the townspeople - how else to explain the feeble acquiescence of the Kanye Wests and Chris Liddells?
So maybe one day Trumpology will be sent to test us after all.
Bill English has made a curious start to his second term as party leader. He enjoys electoral goodwill because his predecessor and their party does. And he can be charming, witty, intellectually subtle and politically purposeful - none of which you would say about John Key. Yet he seems intent on hiding these traits.
It might surprise many to learn that as finance minister and now PM, English has presided over a programme of "social investment" that could become the biggest reform of the welfare state we've seen in this country since the creation of the ACC in the 1970s. But you wouldn't know it to listen to him.
Social investment is targeted welfare based on sophisticated data analysis. It reveals which kids are likely to be most at risk and it has the potential not just to help those kids but to eliminate the risk factors themselves. New Zealand, under English, is a world pioneer.
But the PM rarely talks about it in public. He signals progress on this and other fronts in the tiniest of steps. And when confronted with even remotely challenging questions his instinct is to duck.
Prime Minister Bill English addresses reporters about his decision not to attend Waitangi Day celebrations. Photo: RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly
His answer to the question "Are you a feminist?" was emblematic: why any New Zealand prime minister would find it hard to say they believe men and women have equal rights and should be treated with equal respect is a mystery. But English couldn't do it.
He's the reluctant revolutionary, a deeply instinctive conservative who finds himself in possession of some big ideas he doesn't know how to share. Signs are he'll fight the election on the government's record, not on any changes ahead.
Andrew Little, on the other hand, is the modern version of a traditional Labour reformist, untroubled by his commitment to the verities of fairness, justice and equal opportunity.
He started the year strongly with his state-of-the-nation speech last weekend, inspiring the faithful from both Labour and the Greens who packed the hall in Mt Albert.
He's not afraid to call out Donald Trump - just imagine if political leaders all over the world actually did that.
And he made the shape of his election campaign very clear. He's going to hammer away on housing (affordability for first-home buyers and more social housing to help address poverty), health and education.
He's going to say the government has run out of ideas and has lost the skills to exercise genuine 21st century leadership. He talks of the importance of a "positive, inclusive vision".
But will people care?
Will English simply inherit the Key mantle? Will voters look again at Little, now that Key has gone?
John Key leaving Parliament on 12 December. Photo: RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King
And if the polls don't shift for Labour, or if they collapse for National, will the affected party be tempted by Trumpology? The answer lies in the quality of the debate we will have this year on immigration. It's the issue that could define the election.
* Simon Wilson is a journalist specialising in politics and urban issues
