Fran O'Sullivan: Where's the plan Don and Helen?

What's missing in action during this election is any indication of what Labour or National actually stand for.

It is not just the absence of the "vision thing".

That rather overwrought device is used by far too many chief executives to snow their shareholders (read voters) when it comes to forming new strategies to obtain real performance.

The problem in this election is that the electoral auction - where the two major parties are indulging in some rather shabby vote-buying - has taken precedence over a useful focus on whether either party has an overall economic plan which will financially sustain their ballot-box buying sprees.

At first blush this seems unlikely. There is precious little evidence either side has a new agenda for the next parliamentary term.

But with some six weeks left before the election, there is still time for them to put up for discussion policies that really matter.

This tardiness is partly due to the personalities of the two main political leaders.

Helen Clark has built a reputation as a "safe pair of hands".

She is a control freak. She is a competent Cabinet chair. She is a top-flight political leader. But she is too cautious to embark on the necessary strategic transformation of the New Zealand economy.

Any big-picture vision is more likely to be played out when she finally gets the international job that she denies wanting. The type of job which is not dependent on voters to decide whether to continue her pay cheque if she rubs up against major resistance.

Which is a pity, because she of all the leaders has the necessary political skills to lead transformative change in this country.

In private forums she can be charming and even captivating - when her passions are ignited. But the public persona is too often that of a middle-aged grump.

National Party leader Don Brash first sprang to political prominence with a captivating speech to the 2001 Catching the Knowledge Wave conference.

At that time he was still Reserve Bank Governor and had to gain Finance Minister Michael Cullen's approval before embarking on a clearly political address "in his private capacity". Anyone present at the national brainstorm would have been in no doubt what Brash stood for then.

He was prepared to go outside the box and advocate major policy shifts to ensure long-term benefits. Top-class education, the right tax mix (a limit of $500,000 for personal taxes geared to ensure the retention of a big-time entrepreneurial class), technologies, and so forth.

The problem is that once Brash became leader he started equivocating instead of holding firm to the boldness which was his prime political attraction in the first place.

Defence and foreign affairs - where Brash staked out some clear differentiation last year - have since been fudged and smudged.

Clearly, National will snuggle closer to the US and Australia - if Brash gets to form a government.

But National has been tripped up by its equivocation on the nuclear issue. It made the fatal mistake of holding a pre-election inquiry into the issue without any clear view of where it would go after the results were finalised. Likewise on defence - where Brash had said expenditure needs to be doubled - the resultant election policy is simply anodyne.

Brash and his finance spokesman, John Key, will announce their tax-cutting package some time in the next two weeks. We know Key will also issue a draft budget before the election. But neither Brash nor Key will set firm dates.

They are too scared that Labour - with its clear tactical superiority - will finesse them by releasing another mini-scandal to stop them hogging front pages.

National has already drip-fed policies to minimise the student loans burden and address immigration concerns. But it was gazumped by Labour on the former, and the immigration package it announced yesterday had a punitive tinge.

Brash has made great play of the widening gap between New Zealand and Australian pay packets, which is persuading lots of Kiwis to chance their luck in Aussie.

Major changes are needed to fiscal, regulatory and social policies - the mantra beloved by the 1980s and 1990s reformists.

But that will not be enough to secure a vibrant future for New Zealand.

Clark has the power of incumbency.

If Brash wants to topple her, he needs to spell out what he stands for. He needs to provide some evidence that the light that lit the Knowledge Wave conference has not been extinguished by political cant.