But that's the advantage of being in Government, you're firmly in control of the barrel's bung. In opposition you can only promise stuff will be done if you vote for them, while the Beehive can actually deliver.
Put aside the housing announcements, given that social housing is desperately needed throughout the country, and we probably haven't heard the last on that score this side of the election, and think about the value of the pork barrel to those who are in charge of rolling it.
The Miss Piggy crown in recent years still rests firmly on the head of Helen Clark with her decision to scrap interest on student loans weeks out from the 2005 election, which she ran a real risk of losing to Don Brash.
More than three quarters of a million Kiwis today have student loans and they can still thank Clark, even though the taxpayer's missed out on more than $6 billion in interest payments, meaning the value was very much her own, given she won the election.
But the barrel can also roll back on you as Jim Bolger discovered when he promised on a no-ifs no-buts no-maybes platform to scrap the loathed super surcharge in 1990, which was effectively an income test for the pension. Having won the election, which he was never going to lose anyway against a shambolic Labour Government, he went back on the promise because the BNZ needed bailing out.
So the moral of the story is, see the barrel for what it is.