KEY POINTS:
"No ifs, no buts, no maybes." Not exactly the words that Helen Clark chose to use about personal tax cuts but if National hadn't so discredited the saying on super, she very well may have used them in her conference speech.
On personal tax cuts - "that will
happen under Labour." And it will happen under Michael Cullen, she said. The difference between now and say, back at the May Budget, Clark said, is that Treasury in the past few weeks has said the surpluses with which Labour has been blessed (or cursed) are structural, rather than cyclical. At least that is the political rationale for taking eight years to promise personal tax cuts with such certainty.
Clark's use of the spurs on tax cuts was popular with her own party, too. The Bruce Mason Centre with more than 700 people erupted with as much delight at the tax giddy-up as any National Party audience might.
Cullen's natural posture is to use the bridle. Only on Thursday he was dampening down any expectation that there might be a "lolly-scramble" next year. Goodness knows what sort of beast will finally emerge. Fair, says Clark.
Clark and Cullen talked to reporters afterwards. Neither would say if the cuts would take effect between the Budget next year and the election - though it would be highly unusual to introduce and implement new rates in the same tax year.
Clark made another couple of interesting references in her speech - one, using humour, to help rehabilitate Trevor Mallard more quickly within the party after his fist-fight with Tau Henare. "There's an old saying: to err is human, to forgive divine. Well Trevor is human, and I am not divine, but I do have a capacity to forgive in the greater interest, and in recognition of a colleague's overall contribution to us."
There will have been plenty of people in the Labour Party and caucus who have been of a mood not to forgive Mallard his outburst, some because him staying out of favour might help their own advancement.
Clark's gesture of mentioning him in her speech is significant. He may be down at present but don't count him out.
She again referred to the mere thought of paramilitary training in the Ureweras as being abhorrent. But it seems to me that as time goes on, she is backing the police more.
I was with her for the week in Tonga that followed the raids and she would utter not a word in support of the cops (nor criticism). That is changing. Today she told the conference: "I totally defend their right, indeed their duty, to act when they believe public safety is imperilled."