John Armstrong: Cullen finally consents to passing the jam

Wham! Take that, National Party.

With the assistance of some shameless pragmatism, Labour finally got its otherwise lacklustre election campaign to shine yesterday with a guaranteed vote winner on student loans which consigns National's answer to easing the debt burden to the knacker's yard.

With Helen Clark's minders fearing she would be targeted by a spontaneous protest, Labour's policy launch was a low-key affair confined to a small lecture theatre at Wellington's Victoria University.

The caution was misplaced. The policy spoke for itself.

Labour's pledge to stop interest accruing on student loans from next April completely trumps National's promise to make interest payments tax deductible - a promise all of six days old.

National had expected to derive political spin-off from its policy by virtue of it being simple and speeding the repayment of loans, which, on average, take the holders more than nine years to clear.

But Labour's scheme has the virtue of being even simpler and the even bigger virtue that loans will be paid off even earlier than under National's proposal.

Students will save thousands of dollars into the bargain.

Students only need check out Labour's website to do the sums for themselves.

It is arguable whether the 460,000 New Zealanders with a student loan will be much interested in the rebuttal from National's Bill English that Labour's pledge is bad policy.

Mr English makes a telling point in saying that writing off interest on such an unprecedented scale will have the perverse effect of making student loans balloon in size because there will be every incentive to borrow even more money.

Michael Cullen has also made some telling points in warning voters off National's proposed tax cuts.

But no one appears to be listening.

Mr English may, likewise, discover he too is shouting into the wind.

With middle New Zealand rushing to take up National's offer of tax cuts, why would students not behave in similarly self-interested fashion in giving the thumbs-up to Labour's pledge to axe interest on student loans?

The reality is that this election has most parties nakedly indulging in escalating bidding wars for a number of crucial voter constituencies.

The student vote is one such constituency.

But mounting student debt also exercises the minds of parents and grandparents whose offspring are encumbered with large loans of mushrooming scale brought about by compounding interest.

While catering to this middle-class angst, Labour has worked long and hard on capturing a healthy chunk of the student vote.

It would rather risk accusations of extravagance - its pledge will cost $300 million - than lose its grip on the student vote just because another party suddenly comes along with a better deal.

In his ill-fated May Budget, the parsimonious Dr Cullen warned against large tax cuts.

Too much jam now is likely to lead to only crumbs later, he told us.

The frantic bidding in this campaign makes the election look more like a case of jam now, jam later and jam always.