KEY POINTS:
Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue - a much paler blue in the case of National's bits-and-pieces patchwork welfare policy.
The document completes the party's retreat from its long crusade for radical welfare reform - with the emphasis on radical - driven first by Ruth Richardson, then Jenny Shipley and finally Don Brash.
The latest policy is archetypal John Key. It promises things Labour would happily do itself - such as making the annual inflation-related adjustment of benefit rates a legal obligation on governments, rather than just convention.
Yet in forcing part-time work obligations on some sickness beneficiaries the policy has enough to be identifiably National in origin. But not so much that it frightens centre-ground voters.
Labour and the Greens ritually slammed the policy as an attack on beneficiaries. Some in National's ranks must think "if only".
National's opponents are going through the motions. The plunge in numbers on the unemployment benefit has taken the steam out of the welfare debate - a debate National essentially lost in the 1990s. Key is not going to restoke that particular fire this side of election day. He has noticeably toned down National's language and dispensed with jargon-turned-cliches like "welfare dependency". His speech yesterday made only passing reference to the need for individuals to take responsibility for their actions.
Likewise, what is missing from the policy is as important as what is in it. National has dropped plans to re-introduce a work-for-the-dole scheme. Unlike Brash, it is no longer setting targets and dates for cutting overall benefit numbers. Plans to extend part-time work obligations on those on the domestic purposes benefit simply resurrect a policy National brought in when last in power.
The party has made much of the explosion in numbers on sickness and invalids benefit. But even here it is taking a softly-softly approach.
National is still committed to welfare reform, but it may have determined that incremental changes may be more enduring than "big bang" reforms.
