"If this is the Prime Minister's idea of a "significant policy announcement," I'd like to see her definition of a non-event," Labour finance spokesperson Michael Cullen said today.

He was commenting on Mrs Shipley's joint release with Bill English this afternoon of a vague and rather pompous report on how National would take New Zealand into the next millennium.
Mrs Shipley, in a bid to revive her already flagging campaign, promised this morning that National would issue a "significant policy announcement" every day from now to the election.

"This is the first in the series and must be rated a huge disappointment as it fails to meet any of the criteria Mrs Shipley promised," Dr Cullen said.

"It's not a policy, it contains nothing new, and it is scarcely significant.

"We already know one of the announcements National has in the pipeline is that they are going to steal yet another of Labour's policies.

"Max Bradford gave the game away over the weekend, signalling that they will soon announce that they will follow Labour's lead and allow full deductability on R&D investment in the year of expenditure.

"So what we have now is something old and something borrowed. Something blue should be easy enough for them. But are they up to something new?

"The evidence so far would suggest they are not," Dr Cullen said.

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