It was pretty inept to have not sorted this out in advance.

You might also say it was pretty inept to have the plans for your nascent political party leaked to a right-wing tabloid blogger with links to the governing party. Unless, of course, you were trying to manipulate the news cycle.

I guess the worry for National is this election could see a whole lot of people who don't normally vote turning out on election day. High turnout will likely lower their percentage of the overall party vote making it more difficult to secure any sort of parliamentary majority.