KEY POINTS:
Hold your nerve. That has been John Key's advice to colleagues in the face of mounting calls for National to start talking detailed policy instead of generalised platitudes.
National is not going to be dragooned into bringing forward policy announcements ahead of its own timetable for release. It is resisting because it thinks it can afford to do so. Most voters do not seem to be overly worried that they have only the foggiest notion of what National would do in Government.
National's reasoning stretches beyond voter apathy, however.
Launching manifesto-style policy now would be like pinning a three-ringed target to its forehead. It would give Labour a free shot. It would draw attention away from the Government's problems upon which National is intent on keeping the electorate very firmly fixed.
National has learnt from bitter experience that even harmless-looking policy discussion documents can be trouble. That was the case with last year's paper on health policy which raised questions about National's commitment to cheaper doctors' visits. The release of a similar document on law and order was quietly cancelled.
The bottom line, though, is that right now National doesn't need to release any policy. Voters may arguably be starved of information. But National is hardly suffering as a consequence.
Labour, however, most definitely is. Its frustration could be heard in the Prime Minister's voice this week. Faced with explaining away yet more alarming poll results, Helen Clark complained of being locked in a "phony war" with National because the latter will not spell out its plans.
At some point, she said, National would have to "show and tell" - including indicating where it would be slashing spending to pay for the things it wanted to do. Until National reached that point, the public was not going to get any firm idea of what the alternative to Labour was offering.
Labour is desperately trying to advance the time when that point arrives. Hardly a day goes by without Michael Cullen issuing a rash of press statements warning about the affordability of National's promises and demanding National produce some costings.
His tactics are almost the mirror-image of National's in Government in 1999 - and proving to be about as successful.
Worse for Labour, this time the Opposition party has far more advantage. National has a huge lead in the polls. It holds the whip hand. It suits it just fine for the phony war to continue.
That is not to say National is deaf to the cries of "where are your policies?" The pressure is always on Opposition parties to reveal their hand earlier than they want. But that pressure is more intense this year than at past elections.
First, Key is much more of an unknown quantity than Clark was before she won the 1999 election. That puts more onus on policy to highlight National's brand distinction.
Second, National looks odds-on to win, prompting much more advance questioning about what it will do in Government.
Third, last month's Budget saw Labour give its all though tax cuts and spending promises. While Clark says Labour will "keep rolling out the big ideas"' through to the campaign, the immediate focus has inevitably switched to seeing what National has to offer.
National is conscious that it not be seen to be ignoring voters and treating them with contempt. It has thus been drip-feeding enough fresh policy snippets into Key's speeches to avert that happening.
It will continue to do so for the next 100 days or so before the formal election campaign kicks off. It is around that time that National will start releasing detailed policy in quantity and in a rush.
Holding it back until then has three potential benefits. Where a party thinks a policy will work for it, holding back release until the right moment can help to keep the party on the front foot or help it regain the political initiative.
It makes it harder for its opponents to steal a march on its ideas and initiatives.
It is also possible to bury less popular policy in the hurly-burly of an election campaign. Everyone is competing for attention . The distractions are copious. In short, it is more difficult to get voters to focus on the failings of an opponent's policy.
But there is another significant reason for delay - the Treasury's pre-election fiscal update. National cannot properly cost its most vital policy - tax cuts - until it sees Treasury's latest revenue forecasts, which are issued about a month before the election.
In 2005, Labour extended its Working for Families programme and axed interest charges on student loans on the basis of bumper fiscal forecasts. National was blindsided.
This year's update may bring bad news on the revenue front. National will consequently want some flexibility to juggle spending priorities to keep faith with voters on tax cuts, rather than boxing itself in with big-ticket manifesto commitments.
In the interim, its MPs are also being told to hold their tongues when pressed on National's seeming policy vacuum.
In the wake of Kate Wilkinson's blunder over National's stance on employer contributions to KiwiSaver, Key was ready when the inevitable questions popped up this week.
He claimed National had so far released 14 policies. He also reckoned National was further advanced than Labour had been at the same stage in 1999.
The policies are a mixed bag. They include assurances of what National would not do. Some merely copy Labour's position. Some are new policy initiatives, but lack detail. Others are highly detailed, but also extremely narrow in their application.
As for National being further down the policy track, Key is partly right and partly wrong. He is correct in that Labour likewise left it until five or six weeks before the election before releasing some quite major policies in detail, most notably health and industrial relations.
But Labour had outlined its major policy planks months earlier, including those on its pledge card. Labour also unveiled its tax policy at least a year before the election. That was because it was a potential negative and people needed time to adjust to it, however.
National has so far not gone public to anywhere like the same extent.
Michael Cullen scathingly dismisses Key's list as a "motley bunch of vague promises, yawning gaps and gimmicks".
But therein lies Labour's problem.
The promises are deliberately vague. National has worked out that there is "policy" and then there are broad directional statements which can masquerade as "policy".
One example is National's five-point economic plan. It spells out National's priorities without detailing exactly how its goals will be reached.
Thus National is promising to take "a disciplined approach to Government spending, so that interest rates track down, not up". Beyond not increasing the number of Wellington-based public servants, there is no indication where and to what extent this discipline will be applied.
But keeping things vague makes it much harder for the likes of Cullen to pin National down. Hence the Prime Minister's frustration.
