KEY POINTS:
The first person I ran into in Wellington this morning after getting back from Labour and National's campaign launches in Auckland was Finance Minister Michael Cullen. He was on his way to the Radio New Zealand studios on The Terrace for a debate with his Nation counterpart, Bill English.
Cullen had a bounce in his stride as well he might after Labour's launch and its coupling with the Government's plans to confront global recession.
If you had arrived in Auckland from another planet and gone to both launches, you'd probably have thought that National was the tired old Government and that Labour was the fresh invigorated party on the brink of power.
It was that stark: dull vs energised.
Cullen was also the clear winner on the radio debate. It is possible that English didn't have adequate answers because the party has not yet released all of its economic package or it might be that he is not explaining his policies well enough.
The fact that the Opposition was not given advance warning is now being criticised by United Future's Peter Dunne.
Bipartisanship was in play at the start of last week, after English and Key were briefed by Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard, and they echoed Cullen's assurances that the New Zealand banking system was sound.
It had disappeared on marginally by the end of the week with Key and English were more vocal in their support of a guarantee scheme but fundamentally they did nothing to undermine confidence in the banking system.
The Government, the Treasury and the Reserve Bank were by then working on the quiet with Australia to unveil their deposit insurance scheme on Sunday.
Bollard presumably kept mum when he and English sat together on Saturday night as guests at the NBR Opera's Jenufa at the St James in Wellington.
The Stock Exchange and NZ Institute issued their own paper on what the Government could do.
Herald columnist Fran O'Sullivan in her hard-hitting column 'Let's Gets off our Backsides' reflected the frustration of many that the Government appeared to be doing nothing.
It is easy to see why Dunne is annoyed that the unveiling of a scheme so clearly in the national interest and with widespread support was held for the Labour Party campaign launch. It looks a bit cynical.
But the timing was more in the hands of the Australian cabinet and Reserve Bank which wanted it done and dusted on Sunday afternoon before the markets opened there today.
Bollard and one of the Deputy Secretaries of Treasury will be briefing Key and English this afternoon in National's offices at Parliament.
It will interesting to see what National, too, might make from the crisis.
The way Labour and National use the crisis will require fine judgment by both parties. It would be easy to play on people's fears.
The strength of Helen Clark's campaign opening is that she played to people's need for a sense of security.
