KEY POINTS:
Imagine winning Lotto and swearing you will not touch it for at least 10 years, sticking the millions in cash under your mattress before trudging off to the bank to increase your mortgage so you can make ends meet.
Effectively that is what the Government has done with its 10-year ban on coal and gas-fuelled power stations. Coal is this country's biggest natural resource, yet we refuse to seriously exploit it. We have coal reserves that would last 1000 years, the second-largest stock in the world.
The coal industry acknowledges concerns about greenhouse gas emissions but points out that clean technologies for coal are being rapidly developed and, elsewhere in the world, developed countries, such as Germany, continue to build coal-fired plants. These new power stations use cleaner technologies and have reduced their emissions by up to 30 per cent.
While trying to appease the environmental lobby, John Key had a dollar both ways when he launched National's energy policy.
"We expect that our proposed emissions trading scheme will result in no new coal stations being built, unless proven technologies for carbon-capture and storage change the emissions profile of coal."
That last part of the sentence is significant because the New Zealand coal industry is on record saying commercial applications of carbon-capture and storage technology for coal are feasible within a decade and could be used here within a few years.
Key's energy policy stresses planning for more energy consumption, streamlining the Resource Management Act, putting natural gas back into the energy mix and funding more oil exploration.
Nowhere, except on welfare benefits, is the difference clearer between Labour and National.
The day before Key launched his Think Bigger plan, Labour released its Think Greener policy for Renewable Electricity Generation.
It has the somewhat hopeful goal of having 90 per cent of New Zealand's electricity generated from renewable sources by 2025.
While Key was stressing the need to boost the country's energy capacity, Trevor Mallard and Energy Minister David Parker were outlining their plans that entail small wind turbines in rural backyards to bridge the shortfall in electricity supply.
Citing climate change concerns, Parker says: "We must move away from the technologies of the past to the technologies of the future if we are to reduce our impact on the environment. Those technologies are likely to include wind, geothermal, solar, tidal and hydro."
Labour's energy strategy is driven by Green idealism, National's by economic pragmatism. Labour's plan will inspire younger voters and the conservation-conscious. National's will appeal to business and those who yearn for better economic growth.
The political debate on infrastructure is important because it gives both parties a clearly defined vision of the future for voters to fix on.
Finance Minister Michael Cullen came out on Wednesday declaring Labour would not be outflanked on infrastructure spending, pledging more announcements before the election. Labour has already earmarked up to $4 billion extra to be spent, for example, on electricity generation. Presumably, most of this will be spent on the new technologies of the future outlined by Parker.
Like a player in some high-stakes poker game, National reckons it will spend another $5 billion on old and new infrastructure technologies.
In case you think this grand, high-minded ideological debate on the country's energy future signals a move by both parties to inject some serious intellectual rigour into the election campaign, you are mistaken.
The debate has already degenerated to childish bickering. Clark and Cullen have been howling that National's plans to borrow to fund infrastructure growth will push our debt levels up to a dangerous 22 per cent of GDP.
National's Bill English sneers back that Clark had favoured borrowing when our debt was 50 per cent of GDP. English demands to know how Cullen will finance his extra spending if he labels National's plan as reckless borrowing.
Does either party seriously think the average voter pays any attention to that kind of inane wrangling?
That kind of petty argument simply sounds like white noise, incomprehensible static emanating from the chamber of the House that most of us simply ignore.
Then National Party candidate Stephen Franks further confused matters by burbling to a student audience that a nuclear power plant could be built near Auckland one day because people will demand it.
That gave Parker an attack of the vapours and he promptly called on Key to state whether he shared Franks' views.
National energy spokesman Gerry Brownlee then squished the Franks red herring, saying nuclear power was not part of his party's policy "and won't be".
If you ignore the worst of the silly squabbling there is still a real debate going on about the country's future, and for voters the choices are quite clear-cut.
