It's almost the hoary old chestnut of the election game: Police numbers.
Thus, this week it was no surprise to see an early announcement, from Napier MP and new Minister of Police Stuart Nash, that police will be getting 1800 extra by the time the Labour-NZ First Coalition sees out its first term, should it go the full three years.
This is significantly more than the 1125 the National Party, when in office some months ago, was offering in something which seemed starkly similar to the events leading up to its election in 2008, the start of the three terms under Prime Minister, seen out by Bill English.
When the Key government came in, it was on the back of a pledge that the ratio of police to public would come down to 1:500, a level it reached a year later on the back of steady improvement since 2002 when the number of people per police officer was close to 580. It's currently about 1:530.
With the population clock last night showing 4,830,991 - estimated to increase by one person every 4mins 51secs, by a mixture of one birth every 8mins 44secs, one death every quarter-hour, and net migration gain of one resident every 6mins 19secs - there is an obvious need why the country needs more police officers.