The breakdown of the Otahuhu B power station contributed to future power concerns. Photo / Antoine Millett

The breakdown of the Otahuhu B power station contributed to future power concerns. Photo / Antoine Millett

The last thing Labour needs just months before an election is a serious power shortage that impacts on the way voters live their lives.

So far this year's tight situation hasn't really intruded on the average person's daily routine and yesterday's somewhat muted call for savings seems very much designed to keep it that way.

People are being asked - for now at least - just to do simple things like switch off the heated towel rail that might have been on overnight, and turn off the light in the kitchen when nobody is in there.

That's not exactly difficult for people to do.

Indeed we could have been forgiven for thinking at yesterday's press conference with Energy Minister David Parker that the savings request was nothing unusual at all.

There wasn't even a target for people to aim for.

But the very fact that a saving message is going out is likely to raise questions in some voters' minds about the security of our power supply.

And if the tight situation deteriorates much further and bigger savings are requested, there is a risk voters will really start asking why the country still has these problems after almost nine years of a Labour-led Government.

Labour is well aware of the potential backlash it could feel if things turn pear-shaped - that's why it is trying so hard to get the message out that the shortage is due to a drought and that it's being very well managed.

Ever since hydro lakes fell alarmingly low in 2001, the Cabinet has had updated lake levels on its desk every time it meets.

Prime Minister Helen Clark says this year's shortage is the best managed one she has seen - and she was in charge of the country when two others struck in 2001 and 2003.

She also stresses the Cabinet is acting on the advice it is receiving from the Electricity Commission and Transpower, who say that nothing more needs to be done right now.

That clearly signals that if something goes wrong from here on, those two organisations are not going to be very popular in the Beehive.

It also puts some distance between the Cabinet and the action that is being taken, should things go wrong.

The other message Labour is trying to get out is that in order to have a gold-plated electricity system which never faces these issues, people would have to pay more every day in their power bills.