KEY POINTS:
When fortune turns against a Government, it often turns with a vengeance.
That is happening to Labour. With the election campaign only weeks away, Labour already had enough on its plate without the killing of Manurewa bottlestore owner Navtej Singh.
The economy is heading into recession. The only question is how deeply - and how hard it starts to bite before election day. That Finance Minister Michael Cullen felt impelled to warn in advance to soften the impact of pending poor GDP figures spoke much for Labour's worry.
Now, for the second time in six months, Labour has been confronted with a spate of murders which has again induced near-hysteria over law and order policy in some quarters and enabled National to come out of hiding and box Labour around the ears.
The sheer callousness of the Singh killing makes it a political nightmare for Labour. The party can justifiably defend its record, in strengthening policing and in lengthening prison sentences for serious offences.
But no matter what Labour has done, the Singh case will persuade many it has not been enough. Otherwise, why would certain elements of society engage in such brutal and senseless criminal behaviour for such pitiful financial gain?
Despite the standard promises from political parties to safeguard personal security - and Labour's manifesto is no exception - people are realistic about the state's capacity to do that all the time. What strikes terror into the wider community - and why the Singh killing has provoked such a reaction - is how some members of the "underclass" can value life so cheaply.
While everyone skirts the issue, there is the no small matter of race when an Indian shop-owner is gunned down and the subsequent young faces appearing in court are of Samoan extraction.
This is very delicate territory for Labour. The party relies on the party vote of Maori and Pacific Islanders in seats like Manurewa where those two groups make up more than half the electorate's population.
At the last election, three South Auckland electorates accounted for more than 6 per cent of Labour's total nationwide party vote. Labour's average party vote nationwide was about 13,500 an electorate.
In Manurewa, Manukau East and Mangere, it ranged from around 18,000 to nearly 21,000.
Labour will have a hard enough job getting those voters to the ballot box this time without dumping on them over crime.
National is not so constrained. Labour privately accuses of National of indulging in "dog-whistle politics" by making statements to induce "white fright" - not just among Pakeha living in Manurewa, but among the wider Pakeha population.
With the constant screening of security camera footage of the robbery intensifying revulsion and consequent calls for retribution, the killing was always going to be thrust into the political domain and sooner rather than later. Labour realised that and sought to front-foot its response, rather than looking defensive.
But short of pandering to populism by promising "lock 'em up and throw away the key" prison sentences, Labour knew it could not offer any instant remedies to appease the mix of fear and anger over the killing which was reinforced by two subsequent homicides in the locality.
Neither was it much use putting the deaths into context by arguing they are a coincidental cluster rather than an ominous trend.
The number of homicides nationwide has dropped from 109 to 88 in the past two years. There were eight homicides in the Counties-Manukau police district last year compared to 27 in 2006.
Overall, on a population basis, recorded offences in Counties-Manukau have fallen since Labour took office. The number of violent offences has risen, but much of the increase is put down to increased reporting of domestic assaults.
But the facts cannot compete with emotions running so high over the death of a hard-working man who was trying to establish his business and build a future for his wife and three young children.
That was how John Key characterised Singh, describing him as someone imbued with National Party principles.
That inclusion of Singh as "one of us" was designed to suggest only National understands the daily risk of violence faced by shop-owners in the poorer suburbs of the country's cities.
This attempt to marginalise Labour as being indifferent to crime produced a predictable reaction with the governing party accusing Key of shroud-waving and exploiting Singh's death for political gain.
But it would be naive to expect an Opposition party to act any differently in election year, as any consensus not to exploit the murder would be only to Labour's benefit.
As for insensitivity, Key says the Prime Minister was the first to bring the matter into the political domain by promising action on the profusion of liquor outlets which is seen as a major factor in increasing violence in poorer suburbs.
Nevertheless, Key has been running a particularly hard line on the Singh killing - stronger than might have been expected from Simon Power, National's law and order spokesman, who was in Australia this week.
Key is more of a natural conservative on law and order than his centrist inclinations would suggest. But his political instincts also told him voters are in punitive mood.
Labour argues National's plan to send young offenders to boot camps won't work; that the old borstals served only as "universities" for teaching young people how to take up a life of crime.
Labour also points out it is not clear that all those facing charges over Singh's murder have previously come to the attention of the police. In other words, they would not have gone to boot camp even if such institutions already existed.
The public don't care about such complications. They just think young criminals could benefit from some enforced discipline.
Lacking the boot-camp option, Labour has tried to quell the furore by pointing to its tougher sentencing policy for major crimes, the success of which is evidenced by the consequent blow-out in prison inmate numbers.
It also points to its countless initiatives for better policing and more effective programmes run by state social agencies in areas of social deprivation.
The Prime Minister has brought the heads of Government departments together to try to come up with new policies to help Manurewa's youth stay on the straight and narrow.
She has got her officials in the Prime Minister's Department to accelerate the review of liquor licensing policy, and local Labour MP George Hawkins has finally been able to get his related private member's bill before Parliament.
Hawkins' moves on liquor might be belated, but it is important for Labour that it be seen to be doing something.
But in terms of cooling the debate over law and order provoked by Singh's death, they're fighting a raging bush-fire with a garden hose.
