"National has structured its credible economic package to take account of the changing international climate. Our tax-cut programme will not require any additional borrowing," said Finance Minister Bill English before his 2009 Budget.
Yet government debt has more than doubled in the past three years, from $31.9 billion when National were elected to a remarkable $76.3 billion now - equivalent to 38 per cent of GDP.
Despite cost-cutting and shaving 2400 public sector jobs, Crown expenses are up $2.2 billion compared with three years ago - but revenue is down by $1.4 billion.
So, in context, the $5 billion or so of planned asset sales will do little more than balance one year's worth of government spending. One year of treading water - that's all our state power companies buy us.
The debt will remain and, at current growth rates, by the end of this term New Zealand will be at a similar level of indebtedness to Greece and Italy and other failing economies. Then what?
John Key's answer would doubtless be along the lines of his comments in 2008 on the subject of pledges: "Elections are not about a few policies in a manifesto and I personally think people vote primally. It's really about how you feel, not policies."
Which rather cements my point: faith can make governments and Key knows just how to manifest the faith-healing spectacles.
Mind you, Winston Peters trumped even the Key smarm-and-charm style by hauling himself out of political limbo thanks to the Two Johns cup of tea and the capital he made of it.
Presumably the NZF result relied on the "Winston will keep National honest" mantra - though why anyone should think he and seven or eight muppets (surely the dross of New Zealand politics) can affect anything from their own small isolation block is frankly beyond me.
Still, if nothing else having Peters and Hone Harawira, to say nought of John Banks, will make for a lively Parliament.
The other economic elephant is of course the global one: the fact capitalism is teetering on the brink of collapse. The news on the European front lurches from bad to worse by the day; again, anyone running a debt-driven government like ours who thinks they can avoid the coming depression is fooling the voters and themselves.
But to my mind the biggest elephant of the lot, given we are primarily an agricultural nation, is one that drew no electoral time at all: genetic engineering.
This week, the Ministry for the Environment is calling for tenders to redesign our GE regulations. The aim? To make trials and use of GMOs more "economically competitive".
In short, to free up the rules and let GE completely out of the bag. And you (should) know what that will mean.
Apart from a short side-bite from the Greens, this startling news was totally overlooked during the campaign. Yet by implication, it has the potential to fundamentally redefine the "clean green" image of this country as "unnaturally modified".
MofE would not be doing this without the blue boys' direction.
Three elections back, GE was a defining issue. Do people somehow think it has been dealt with?
If so, they're wrong - because they've just given the Nats the go-ahead for GE "freedom" too. But as Key already knows - and just won an election on - the only thing that matters is how you feel.
That's the right of it.
Bruce Bisset is a freelance writer and poet.
