In the final week of the election campaign, parties large and small will want to make clear to voters why they are more deserving of your vote than the other guys. It doesn’t mean going negative… oh alright, it does a little bit. But it doesn’t mean playing dirty. It just means pointing out the others’ imperfections.

As promised, this has been a very clean campaign. Despite the high stakes for those involved, the parties have seemingly decided these are uncertain times when voters won’t reward foul play, or even much negativity. Apart from Winston Peters’ dalliance with the race card with his largely ignored speech at Orewa, parties have tended to stick to pushing their own lines.

But as parties head into the final week trying to accentuate the differences between them and the others, where might we some attacks focused?

Labour: As I wrote last week, there’s plenty of opportunity to point to Labour’s failings to live up to the promises it made at the previous election. This could be useful ammunition for the Greens, especially, to remind voters that if they really want progress on poverty reduction, housing affordability and climate change, Labour alone won’t get it done.

For National, I’ve been surprised it hasn’t made more of the government’s own Interim Climate Change Committee (ICCC) report that said the plan to reach 100 percent renewable energy by 2035 could see residential electricity prices rise by 14 percent, and do nothing to cut emissions. I suspect a lot of voters are concerned about rising household costs right now and electricity going up that much will not be popular.

National: Two of its policies stand out to be as particularly unpopular. First, Judith Collins has promised to left the foreign buyers ban on housing. While it was only ever one part of many policies intended to bring down house prices, it was one that most people understood and supported. It’s an easy attack line to suggest National wants to risk raising house prices for the sake of non-New Zealanders. I guess the incumbent coalition partners don’t want to draw attention to the fact houses prices have continued to surge this term.

The second is National’s 1000 Days child policy. While it has been pitched as an additional $3000 for new parents, it’s not quite that simple. Currently every family with a new baby gets $60 per week for the first year. National’s policy would means-test that, cut the payments slightly from $3120 to $3000 and only make them available via vouchers and service provision rather than cold, hard cash.

With the Greens, I’d be surprised if their Wealth Tax doesn’t become the focus of more attention this week. It would see New Zealanders with a net worth greater than $1 million, pay 1 per cent on their wealth above $1m each year (crucially, your mortgage is deducted). Although Labour’s Stuart Nash has declared it “off the table”, it’s reasonable to expect the Greens to fight hard for it or some kind of substantial tax reform in coalition negotiations. And its complexity makes it a simple target for any party that wants to scare off the Green’s middle-class, urban voter base.

Finally, ACT is ripe for some snippy attacks from, say, National, if it decides it wants some of its vote back. Sue Bradford laid out some of the party’s less discussed policy agenda here, but the simplest attack line would be to say that to get back to surplus in just four years would mean some massive spending cuts, including a 10 percent cut right across the public sector (excluding health, police and defence).

Keeping it clean isn’t the same at pointing out your opponents, er, issues. Let’s see who’s prepared to go on the attack in these final days.