John Armstrong: Not quite nirvana, but maybe manana

Well, he was true to his word.

Michael Cullen's third Budget is a yawn.

Deliberately so. With an election pending, this Budget unashamedly promotes Labour's Finance Minister as a safe pair of hands when it comes to running the economy - someone proudly claiming a place in "the premier division of the international league for fiscal prudence and predictability".

Move over Ruth Richardson and Bill Birch.

Yet, despite Dr Cullen's protestations that the Budget is about "earning re-election, not buying it", this is still very much an election-year Budget, if not quite the traditional spend-up.

While there is no lolly scramble - Dr Cullen has kept within his self-imposed spending limit - there has been a lolly scramblette.

Millions of dollars have been sprayed around the country to entice potential Labour voters and scratch every itch that noisy lobby groups might feel in election year.

The list is long and diverse. A pay rise for soldiers, more money for the Auckland War Memorial Museum, cash for research on the varroa bee mite, cash for Creative New Zealand, the Arts Foundation, the Film Commission and the Film Archive to offset cuts in lotteries funding. And, of course, the extra $30 million to settle the teachers' pay dispute. (That itch has become a sore.)

And so on. The lollies might not be very big, but there are lots of them.

However, all this was announced before Budget Day. It was shuffled out of the way to allow Dr Cullen to concentrate on displaying himself as the high priest of fiscal rectitude on the one occasion when every camera and commentator was focusing on the fiscal indicators - the large numbers, rather than the largess.

This strategy also ensured the media would focus on the Budget's theme of "economic transformation" through tertiary reforms, more skills training, attracting foreign investment and extra trade promotion.

All this manoeuvring has one purpose - to shut National out by shutting down the debate on economic policy.

Just about every policy Dr Cullen announced yesterday on economic development could have been happily announced by a National government.

And the improvement in the Budget surplus enabled Dr Cullen to crow that he was not having to borrow for his super fund, depriving National of a key point of attack.

But there is another big point of difference between the two major parties - tax cuts.

The highly political nature of this Budget is betrayed by the amount of text that Dr Cullen defensively devotes to criticising tax cuts as a policy tool for enhancing economic growth.

Then again, the Budget speech is full of padding, with little to turn the head of the ordinary punter. The extra health spending was flagged before Christmas. One aspect of housing policy has now been announced three times.

There are no hints of what new initiatives Labour might implement in its second term.

There is no indication when "economic transformation" policies will translate into a sustained period of 4 per cent economic growth - the rate Dr Cullen requires to lift New Zealand's standard of living into the top half of OECD nations.

Instead, Dr Cullen urges New Zealanders not to wallow in self-pity or self-recrimination about the country's economic performance. We have only been slower than others. We have not gone backwards.

Does this apparent absence of vision matter? Judging from the opinion polls, not this side of the election.

Dr Cullen, unlike his predecessors, has never made the mistake of promising his policies will lead to the rapid creation of economic nirvana. "There is very little point in taking bold steps in the wrong direction," he declares.

The message to voters is: Trust us. We'll get there - in time.

Should the economy falter after the election, the risk for Labour is that it will be accused of indulging in manana - putting off until tomorrow what should have been done today.

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