Labour leader Chris Hipkins launching the party's first key election policy this term. Photo: RNZ / Marika Khabazi
Analysis - Labour's new Future Fund proposal is as much about optics as economics - a bid to claw back some credibility and to seize control of the looming tax debate.
But the distinct lack of detail has left Labour somewhat exposed, evoking echoes of other ambitious projects that fizzled, like KiwiBuild or the Green Investment Fund.
The proposed fund would be seeded with the dividends of selected state-owned assets and a $200 million Crown capital injection, mandated to invest only in New Zealand businesses and infrastructure.
Party strategists are alert to the outsized significance of the policy, aware it would attract more attention and scrutiny given Labour's policy vacuum this term.
It seeks to tap into a sense of national pride and long-term stewardship at a time of economic pessimism: "Our future should be built by us, for us."
Politically, it gives Labour something to point to as a sort of economic vision, after a long stretch of being accused of lacking one, and draws a comparison with National which is more open to asset sales or growth through foreign investment.
Note also the deliberate pitch to business - that promise of "partnership" - as it seeks to rebuild credibility in the boardrooms it lost before last election. Infrastructure NZ has offered early support to the plan.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins has not shied from his party's flawed record but rather tried to draw a line under it.
"We've heard the lesson of last term: too much, too fast, not enough finished," the policy document concedes. "The next Labour Government will be different."
Hipkins hopes to recast Labour as a builder rather than a spender - a party focused on growing the economy, not just taxing and redistributing it.
And there is the other objective: preparing the ground for Labour's long-awaited tax policy, expected later this month.
The document makes it explicit: "Tax can't be the government's only source of income. It's time to build new ways of generating national wealth for the benefit of everyone."
That's deliberate framing and a signal Labour wants to talk about growing the pie, not just slicing it differently.
Of course, the coalition parties would far rather talk about Labour's plan to gobble it up - and no amount of groundwork will stop that.
All three have been scathing in their response to the "Future Fund" proposal, but for different reasons.
National rubbished it as "twelve pages of total fluff," describing the lack of costings as a "total joke". Party attack dog Chris Bishop quipped he put more effort into his Uber Eats orders.
ACT labelled it a "boondoggle" and pointed to the Green Investment Fund's failed backing of Solar Zero.
NZ First leader Winston Peters, meanwhile, claimed the idea as his own, accusing Labour of fashioning a "Temu mail-order rip-off" of his $100 billion policy announced in October last year.
Hipkins purported not to have been aware of it, but the flavour of the announcement clearly leant heavily on Peters' brand of economic nationalism.
An effort perhaps to woo some of his supporters? Or a nod toward common ground post-election?
Labour is most vulnerable to the criticism around the thin details, as it feeds National's well-established attack line that Labour is all slogans, no substance.
Indeed, the policy documents came with no figures and no list of assets.
At the launch, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds suddenly dropped the $200m capital figure, but fell back on "commercial sensitivities" when pressed on exactly what assets might be involved.
Labour finance and economy spokesperson Barbara Edmonds (L) and leader Chris Hipkins (C) visit Auckland start-up space GridAKL. Photo: RNZ / Marika Khabazi
She said those details simply could not be revealed until the party was in government. But without them it's impossible to judge the true scale - or credibility - of the proposal.
And Labour's far riskier tax plan still looms heavy on the horizon.
Labour is hoping this policy will act as a reset for its economic credibility, but as seen recently on the opposition benches, political resets can quickly go awry.
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