John Armstrong: Test of National’s nerve

No one has taken much notice yet, but something keeps popping up in Don Brash's speeches.

He mentions it only in passing - but he keeps mentioning it. The "something" is immigration.

Brash keeps raising the subject in the context of young, skilled Kiwis fleeing the country for a better standard of living elsewhere, and how replacing them with migrants will change New Zealand society "more comprehensively than most of us want" and "faster than is desirable".

The talk should not be taken as National planning some all-out Winston Peters-style campaign to slash the present annual intake. The party would risk ridicule for being blatantly populist and somewhat desperate.

Such an offensive would also be tricky personally for Brash. As he acknowledges, and everyone knows, his wife comes from Singapore.

There is a big difference, however, between New Zealand First's emotive exploitation of immigration and the more ordered debate Brash would want. He is reserving the right to hold one. But when?

Timing is now everything for National. The election may still be five months away. National cannot fire all its policy shots now, even though it is under such obvious pressure to do something - anything - to shift the polls and close the gap on Labour.

Doing so would give Labour even more time to trump, match or at least go some way towards neutralising National's efforts to mark itself out as a clear alternative.

National is wary of having its guns continually spiked, as happened on Treaty of Waitangi matters with Trevor Mallard's review of race-based policies, and again on welfare reform, with Steve Maharey flagging new Work and Income procedures to prod beneficiaries to take up work.

Holding its nerve is not made any easier by Labour's utter ruthlessness. That party's lack of scruples about putting self-interest ahead of everything else was dramatically illustrated by the postponing of September's decisions on Transpower's planned high-voltage transmission line through the Waikato, so the matter does not arise in the midst of the election campaign.

Labour's unadulterated pragmatism was also evident in this week's bidding war with New Zealand First for the votes of the elderly. It is a war that Brash declined to join - not least because National will not rebuild its credibility with these voters on the back of rash promises, given its history of broken ones in the 1990s.

However, National does not want to risk devaluing Brash's credibility as an economic manager by promising everything to anyone who puts up their hand - especially when Labour will be forcing him to justify the affordability of National's tax cuts when their scope is finally unveiled after next month's Budget.

That package is central to National's efforts to set the agenda for the election campaign on its own terms. But the crucial detail cannot be finalised until it sees the updated Government's accounts.

In the interim, National strategists have been trying to stagger other policy releases for maximum impact amid a cat-and-mouse game the Prime Minister has been playing with the election date to spook National into showing its hand earlier than it would want.

However, while juggling with timing to avoid giving Labour any advantage, National has also been conscious of how former Australian Labour leader Mark Latham last year disastrously delayed too long before announcing key policies, with the result that there was not enough time for them to sink in.

With the release of its education policy this week, National has now outlined its broad stance in the five key areas where it intends being in marked contrast to its major rival, the others being treaty matters, welfare reform, law and order, and - with the detail yet to come - tax cuts.

Labour is already trying to neutralise the latter by frightening voters into thinking major tax reductions will force the Reserve Bank to raise interest rates.

The fear factor is similarly being deployed to undermine National's new education policy, with Labour seizing on the promise to bring back bulk funding as a lurch backwards into a conflict-ridden past.

That does not worry National. It is privately delighted at the hostile reception from teacher unions and sector lobby groups.

National's audience is middle-class parents who do not see why a major sector of the economy should be exempt from lifting the quality of its services to its clients - their children.

But the policy is not going to transform National's fortunes overnight, and neither does the party expect it to.

While the policy clearly defines where the party stands, it is a complicated package of reforms needing repeated explaining to register with its target audience.

That points to National's underlying problem. Apart from Brash's "one law for all" stand on the treaty, and his promise to abolish parole for repeat offenders, his party's policies do not have "gut" impact.

The party also needs a killer catchphrase which ties its broad policy themes together in a simple, easily comprehended fashion.

It is working on that. But it is also seriously handicapped by Brash not getting the national profile an Opposition party needs for it to be seen to be really taking the fight to the Government in election year.

Brash is starting to lift the tempo, partly through National's round of regional conferences, the latest of which is in Auckland this weekend.

His attack on Police Commissioner Rob Robinson - a coded warning to public servants to stay out of the coming campaign - may be a sign that Brash is finally going to show a more combative streak missing from his performances in Parliament.

But National is still a long way short of displaying the killer instinct that was once the hallmark of its pursuit and retention of power.

His polite, reasoned disposition works for Brash on one level. But in a crowded political marketplace it is too safe and too predictable - and so too easy for Labour to counter.

Party insiders now accept that Brash is going to have to step out of his comfort zone and start taking risks to make National a contender rather than an also-ran.

Time for an argument about immigration, perhaps?