Editorial: Labour out of its comfort zone

Somewhere, deep in the gloom of the Labour Party caucus, there is bound to be a suppressed, black smile at the twists of politics. A smirk, quickly banished to the back of the mind, at the thought that the Government's acute discomfort in the polls so close to the general election is down to its most surefooted operator, Michael Cullen.

The man who has redefined the word Teflon through six years in power. The fixer who fixed numerous other ministers who strayed off message and took on the foreshore and seabed and won. The one who is, remarkably and perhaps worryingly, Deputy Prime Minister, Finance Minister, Leader of the House and Attorney-General simultaneously.

Not for him the recklessness of Paintergate, speeding limousines and being outed for media manipulations against civil servants. Until now, the Second Among Equals was master of the game and his mastery was a substantial contributor to Labour's solid lead in all opinion polls. All of which makes his 67 cents-a-week Budget tax "threshold adjustment" and its life-threatening consequences for the Government inexplicable, even after a month of retrospective justification.

How could Dr Cullen, of all people, have got it so wrong? In part, it is because of his very success in the ministry. Riding high and with an influence to match, it is unlikely that he would have been sufficiently challenged on the wisdom of Clayton's tax changes from within the Government caucus in the lead-up to the Budget. It was a twin-play: half-hearted acknowledgement of United Future's support by tinkering with inflation indexing of tax thresholds - and a refusal to cede the tax relief issue to National. Yet no one told the emperor that he was stark naked (or stark, raving mad, or both).

The Finance Minister was, perhaps, undone by Labour's other most proficient fixer, the party president, Mike Williams, with hints of great intrigue about the Budget's deep, dark secret. A Cullen of past years would still have put that right. As he has since accepted, he ought to have pricked the balloon of tax cut expectations when it was only partly inflated, not when it reached maximum tension.

Their combined hamfistedness is indicative of arrogance in a governing party towards the end of two terms in office. Dr Cullen has a superciliousness about him that has always cut both ways in the public mind. His 2000 or so days in charge of the country's finances have not softened that edge but sharpened it. His disdain for National, personal antipathy towards its leader, Don Brash, and prevailing fiscal and opinion-polling winds seemingly blinded him to the public desire to be taken seriously on income tax. The minister has struggled, vainly, to make his Budget surpluses disappear, so that voters might not be tempted to claim some money back.

So Labour stands a month or two away from an election campaign with its comfort zone in the polls evaporated. This week, to add to its unease, a further and unexpected $500 million in tax receipts dropped into the Government's lap. Dr Cullen's judgment was found wanting in the Budget. His timing and touch, though, are not entirely lost. He rapidly - if inconsistently - promised that the $500 million would be used for more roads, a vote-winner. But his loss of form came at a critical time, as remarkable as the change of fortunes for, say, All Black star Joe Rokocoko, and just as puzzling.

It would be entirely understandable if Labour MPs didn't know whether to laugh or cry.