This Govt has had a charmed beginning, helped in no small measure by a clever first 100 days in which they under-promised and if not over-delivered ... certainly didn't come up short.
The leader walks on water, the beauty of the miracle laid out each day by a besotted media who long ago forgot the word objectivity.
And of course they ride the wave of a very strong economy delivered to them by the previous government.
So far so good, but here's where things start to hit the fan.
Once you've announced all your inquiries and working groups which in essence do, produce and solve nothing, you actually get down to the bits and pieces that make or break you as a guardian of the economy.
The regional package announced last Friday has real merit.
If it works, it's worth votes as well as jobs and economic growth in parts of the country that really need it.
It's risky, and ironically a New Zealand First idea ... and they should really be taking the credit not the Labour party.
No the Labour party seem to be behind the really nutty stuff, the crowning glory of which seems to be KiwiBuild.
Now we need to separate out the parts of this issue.
We all agree we need more houses, so the broad idea isn't really at fault given it would appear the market can't deliver the number of houses required.
That's if you want to try and manipulate the market into a level of affordability the way the Labour party do, and in that is their great mistake… it can't be done.
And if it can, it can't be done the way they are going about it and the papers lay that bare.
Not only do we not have the builders to do the work, and we have known that well before they promised to cut immigration by 20 to 30 000, but turns out we don't actually have the people with the money to buy the houses.. if in fact they're ever built.
Auckland alone will get 50,000 of these so-called affordable homes, but the papers show us only 25,000 first home buyers have the income to buy them.
The great crime was minister Phil Twyford being asked what sort of income you would need to buy one of these homes, he said 60 grand.
Turns out to be 114 grand.
Now if the bloke in charge of all this, is that out to lunch, do we hold out any hope at all?
Enter the Prime Minister who in an interview with me Tuesday broke into a rare bout of depression by agreeing the Government may actually not only end up building these homes, but having to buy them as well.
They will have to take a stake in the homes so as to make them affordable.
And that money for the stake comes out of the money that was for building, so the building slows down.
And the building is already behind … 10,000 a year for 10 years is the promise, it's already back to 18,000 in the first three years and we all know that's a speculative promise at best ... given not a single house has actually been built yet five months into Government.
This is where the rubber hits the road, re-election will not be possible with committees, reports and working group findings.
Re-election is won on a strong economy and good economic stewardship.
If progress on KiwiBuild is their best work, National could have picked Mickey Mouse as their new leader and still feel confident.
