KEY POINTS:
You wouldn't be cracking open the champagne tonight if you were a Labour MP sitting on a narrow majority.
Any backbencher hoping the Prime Minister was going to announce one or two juicy initiatives in her annual statement to Parliament which would capture the public's imagination will have been disappointed.
Plans for some publicly-owned land to be freed up for new housing - a further step in the Government's efforts to make housing more affordable - is about as exciting as it gets.
The other major announcement is extra funding for the Pathways to Partnership programme run by the Social Development and Justice ministries to help non-government organisations run parenting programmes, projects for at-risk youth, women's refuge services and so forth.
It is worthy stuff. It is Labour meat and drink. It is the sort of thing that turns up in every Budget without anyone paying it much attention beyond Budget day. It is not going to rock the socks of voters who have drifted to National.
However, the extra funding is substantial. And for Labour - looking for a means to counter John Key's National - "substance" has become the buzzword.
Clark is saying "we have it and they don't". That is reflected in Clark's remark that New Zealand's electoral cycle is too short for the Government to shut up shop in election year and campaign.
In other words, while Key tries to distract Labour by running a de facto election campaign, Labour is getting on with governing.
In that regard, the statement - and the absence of flashy, populist measures - typifies Clark's "slow and steady does it" approach to winning re-election. She has made herself the tortoise to Key's hare.
She says by election time, Labour will have rolled out the "big policies'. Labour will be campaigning on the substance - on policies delivered and policies to come.
However, every time Clark allows Key to overshadow her in the short-term, the harder it will be for Labour to overhaul National in the long-term.
Clark is not going to be panicked. However, some of her colleagues might be wondering whether a bit of panic now and again might not be such a bad thing.
