KEY POINTS:
In politics, timing is everything. Unfortunately for the Government, too many vital factors have gone out of sync close to the November 8 election.
When you are facing the ballot box it is vital to have all your economic ducks in a row.
While some of us vote for a party out of loyalty or habit and others vote out of idealism, most crucial swinging voters consult their wallets before deciding who to vote for.
The Reserve Bank's interest rate cuts have come too late to be of much use in winning Labour the hearts and minds of the mortgage belt.
Most are stuck on term loans and unable, for a while, to take advantage of falling rates.
Similarly next month's tax cuts. Many households will have had only a couple of paydays before they vote. If those households are like mine they will not notice any increase in take-home pay for a few weeks.
Most of us have an accumulation of debt, credit-card bills and long-deferred payments and, in the short term, any spare cash will go to paying off those nasty, parasitic debts. It will be a while before folk start smiling as their savings account balances begin to creep up.
Finance Minister Michael Cullen is telling anyone who will listen that the worst of the recession is now over, and he and Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard agree things will start looking up early next year. They are probably right, but the "light at the end of the tunnel" argument is unlikely to spur voter confidence. Any economic upturn will come three or four months after the election. Actually, coverage of the economy at present is a little like those old "good news, bad news" jokes.
Interest rates come down. Good news for hard-pressed mortgagees. Bad news for mortgage-free, retired people who whipped their savings out of collapsing finance companies and were hoping to stick the cash into bank term deposits for safekeeping. The banks will now no longer offer decent returns.
Lower interest-rate returns from banks could be good news for the stockmarket as people look to get better money out of share dividends.
Then again, lower interest rates are forcing foreign investors out of the New Zealand market, dropping the value of the dollar. That is good news for exporters and cow-cockies, who will get more for their products. But it is bad news for you and me, who will have to pay more for imported goods.
Oh, yes, then there is inflation, which will start pushing 5 per cent, eroding your tax cuts and wages with higher prices. That is bad news for everyone.
Confused? Join the club. But the bottom line is that most of us will go into the election not sure if we are better or worse off than before and the Government is unlikely to reap any goodwill.
Like most commentators, armed with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, I can now categorically say Cullen should have delivered those tax cuts months ago and Bollard and the Reserve Bank should have slowly eased interest rates when the economy started to slow.
Lacking a time machine or crystal ball, I suspect their calls were harder to make than mine.
Still, the effect is that voters will head to the polling booths knowing either the value of their biggest asset, their home, is many thousands of dollars less than it was a year ago or that the hope of owning a first home seems just as forlorn as it was last year. In late summer next year we may be feeling a lot more chipper.
The housing market could pick up, mortgages become more affordable and those cuts could assist our ability to pay the lower interest rates. However, that won't happen by November 8.
The other crucial mistiming is purely political.
The Government wanted to go into this election portraying National as bumbling, incompetent, lacking experience and secretly plotting to take us back to Rogernomics and Ruthenasia.
Instead, mainly because of the drawn-out debacle of the Winston Peters affair, the Government looks tired, hamstrung, held to ransom and hiding some stinky secrets.
Although the Privileges Committee might render a verdict soon, I doubt that the Electoral Commission, the police or the Serious Fraud Office will have completed their inquiries by the time we vote. Unless Prime Minister Helen Clark fires Peters out of exasperation, there is no immediate solution in sight. I suspect there were times this week when Clark hoped the Swiss-based Hadron Particle Collider really would create a black hole and swallow up her troublesome Foreign Minister before polling day.
