KEY POINTS:
Once upon a time, election-year Budgets were blatant lolly scrambles as Ministers of Finance desperately sought to appease the voters they had upset in the two previous years.
True, Labour has been on something of a spending spree in recent weeks, most notably with the buy-back of the country's rail services.
But a fair chunk of this spending comes with no discernible pay-off politically - such as the increase in the number of New Zealand diplomats and the upgrade of Mt Eden Prison.
Normally, tax cuts would be seen as a bribe to voters. But Labour has held off cutting personal taxes for so long their inclusion in the Budget is now simple political necessity.
Michael Cullen is on record as saying Budgets are more likely to lose votes than win them.
He and Prime Minister Helen Clark have consequently been deliberately playing down the contents of this year's document so public expectations do not get too high in advance.
With the economy going into a downturn, the Minister of Finance will re-emphasise the need for fiscal prudence.
That is a way of attacking National, whose tax cuts will be bigger than the ones he will deliver.
Fiscal caution, however, has to be balanced against the need for the Budget to make some impact. Otherwise it will be written off as a flop.
So how did past Finance Ministers under the electoral hammer frame their election-year Budgets?
BUDGETS UNDER PRESSURE
* 1999 - Bill Birch. About to be knighted, Birch was allowed to deliver National's Budget as his swansong despite many thinking the job should have been done by Bill English, who took over as Finance Minister a month or so later in a pre-arranged handover. National had responded to the Asian financial crisis with spending cuts - at some political cost. The 1999 Budget sought to redress the balance with modest boosts in spending, including promises to build new hospitals and schools. It introduced a parental tax credit for working families with a new child and abolished the public broadcasting fee and stamp duties. But no item stood out as likely to excite voters. Prime Minister Jenny Shipley blandly described the Budget as a "a major step towards a brighter future". Even she could not get excited about it.
* 1993 - Ruth Richardson. National won that year's election - just. But Richardson got no credit for that after her politically toxic 1991 "Mother of All Budgets". She was sacked soon after the election as a sacrificial gesture to show National had got the message from voters. Her third and last Budget was memorable for introducing the requirement that Governments open their fiscal books in the weeks before an election. National had got a shock introduction to Government after the 1990 election when it discovered Labour had hidden huge losses at the largely Government-owned Bank of New Zealand. The subsequent Fiscal Responsibility Act is Richardson's legacy. Her Budget also contained some modest financial relief for low-income families. But that was about it.
* 1990 - David Caygill. Labour was heading for electoral slaughter and the man made Minister of Finance after David Lange sacked Roger Douglas could do nothing about it. Caygill's second Budget blotted what had been a safe if unspectacular stint as Finance Minister. His claimed Budget surplus of $89 million was created by using the $1.25 billion from the sale of state forest cutting rights to fund the shortfall in tax revenue instead of using it to pay off debt. The Budget was also notable for cutting the price of a new car 5 per cent by shaving excise tax; slashing defence spending by 10 per cent; making child visits to the doctor no more than $5; and applying fringe benefit tax to company car parks.
* 1984 - Sir Robert Muldoon. The cart ended up coming before the horse. Budgets then were delivered a couple of months later than now. The July snap election prevented Sir Robert from delivering a Budget. The incoming Labour Government hurriedly put one together afterwards.
