KEY POINTS:
The Government is clearly determined to underpin its own political legacy by spending up large on major taxpayer-funded projects in election year.
Think about it as a 21st century version of Think Big - the raft of energy projects launched by Sir Robert Muldoon's National Government to try
and protect the economy from the threat of future oil shocks.
The current Government's projects have yet to be drawn under a common umbrella or even given a slogan. But they are sufficiently statist in nature to reinforce this Government's determination to ensure the State increases its footprint over the New Zealand economy.
On Labour's list are:
* The first major public-private partnership - a proposed $2 billion tunnel under suburban Mt Albert-Waterview to complete Auckland's Western ring route motorway.
* A proposal for the Government to buy back the railways from Australia's Toll Holdings.
* Major housing projects and shared equity schemes to help New Zealanders into affordable houses.
* A new $700 million fund to increase research and development in the primary sector.
Behind the scenes, the Government is also investigating a proposal to electrify Auckland's suburban rail network, and plans for a major investment in this country's broadband infrastructure.
Put the 2008 projects on top of Finance Minister Michael Cullen's earlier moves to bring Air New Zealand back into majority Government ownership, launch the New Zealand Superannuation Fund and KiwiSaver and invest strongly in Auckland's transport infrastructure and a clear picture emerges of a Government intent on leaving its political legacy by spending up large.
All Labour needs to do now is repeat its 2005 election scenario by offering new voter bribes - such as abolishing student fees and reducing the student loan debt burden for graduates struggling to buy houses - and its political brand will be sufficiently differentiated from National, offering a clear choice at the election.
In 1990, the then Labour Government left the Treasury coffers so bare that an incoming National Government was forced to rescind its own big budget policies and slash spending to redress a fiscal crisis.
The effect of Cullen's big spending strategy will be to reduce the fiscal options available to future Governments. The upshot will be that National will also come under pressure to say what programmes it will cut to fund its own policies.
Take this week's announcement of a $700 million primary sector fund, the Fast Forward Fund.
Unfortunately for the Government, the faux scandal over the Parliamentary Speaker's tour took prime television attention away from its announcement.
The Speaker's tour is what is commonly known as a "jolly" or a "boondoggle" and a first-class one at that. MPs of all persuasions have accompanied the Speaker in the past on these major international tours and they will do so in the future.
There is an argument for reserving such junkets for lacklustre MPs to ensure those that make a difference stay at the political coalface. But this got lost in the chase for an easy story.
Pity that such dogged media pursuits are not directed to the complex areas where the Government's policies comprise a major risk to the New Zealand's economic future such as the poorly thought out emissions trading legislation. But that might be hoping for too much as far as today's television networks are concerned.
The upshot is that National's John Key said he would scotch the fund if his party wins the election. His finance spokesman Bill English slammed it as a money-go-round, but said the country would have to wait until the election for National to release its own policies geared to increase research and development in New Zealand's crucial primary sector.
Key and English have finally woken up to the dangers of me-tooism. But neither politician is thinking fast enough. If National is true to its principles it would have simply said:
"We will increase the tax write-offs available to the private sector for genuine research and development, rather than set up a state fund which simply adds to the administrative burden and will end up in millions of dollars pledged to projects which will never result in commercial benefits."
But instead it again used its "wait till election time" mantra.
Key did, however, finally launch a coherent attack on the Government over its stance on the Canadian Pension Plan's bid for a 40 per cent stake in Auckland Airport.
He has also foreshadowed one major policy - National's intention to cap the number of core public servants at 36,000 - finally a line in the sand as far as National is concerned.
Where the Labour Government may be vulnerable is on the costings of its own major projects.
Cabinet ministers will certainly be hoping their projects won't ultimately be criticised as a waste of taxpayers' money in the way Think Big ultimately became tarred.
Cullen clearly put too much Government cash into buying the Auckland suburban rail network from Tranz Rail. Toll Holdings will be an even harder negotiator.
