Well, is that normal coverage resumed then? All back to normal? No, I don’t mean the Black Caps under-performing in Australia. The big ‘back to normal’ moment this week has been Labour’s announcement this week that it will finally – finally – start borrowing and spending.

Finance Minister Grant Robertson’s announcement to borrow $12 billion over the next five years moves us back towards the traditional red-blue divide, with Labour promising spending and bemoaning National’s neglect, while National bemoans loose spending, over-taxation and promises more fiscal discipline.

It tells us where the battle-lines will be for next year’s election and, unsurprisingly, it turns out they will be where they have always been. Put it this way: Labour Parties have always been more comfortable with red.

For all that, it’s something of a surprise to see Robertson, so careful with his party’s fiscal reputation, allowing the numbers to turn red, even if only for a year. It’s almost as if he’s signalling to his base that he hasn’t forgotten what Labour parties are for.

It’s also curious to see Robertson and Jacinda Ardern contort their political message to justify a move that is at once utterly predictable but also significantly at odds with the one they’ve sold this term.

From the day they came into power, people have been asking them why they don’t use the historically low global interest rates to borrow more. Given the years of howling they did in Opposition, decrying National’s neglect of social spending, why weren’t they acting?

The top pair pointed to their Budget Responsibility Rules of debt no higher than 20 percent of GDP and the need to have enough in the kitty for another gigantic natural emergency.

But they’ve always insisted they were spending. At first it was the 100 days programme, with the families package and winter heating subsidy. Then it was Kiwibuild and state houses.

All this though was cautious, keeping out crown debt levels amongst the lowest in the developed world. And the range and volume of voices grew. Yet Robertson stubbornly insisted he had “the balance about right”.

In May this year the spending increased. A little. He also changed the 20 percent target to a “range” of between 15 and 25 percent. But the core message was the same. On one hand, ‘we’re resisting these calls to borrow and spend, our debt will remain low by global standards’ but on the other ‘look at how I’ve just spent on mental health, rail and getting rid of school donations’. We are spending plenty, he said. More than the other lot. And, of course, he still had the balance about right.

“I’m comfortable with where we are in terms of the balance we’ve struck between making big investments in fixing schools and hospitals and building up our transport infrastructure and keeping fiscal discipline,” he said.

The calls for borrowing only increased, however. Kiwibank’s chief economist Jarrod Kerr was typical, saying, “our obsession with balanced budgets and debt limits has created a burgeoning infrastructure deficit. We’re one of the most highly rated nations in the world. And we have less debt than most nations in the top 10. Our government has access to some of the cheapest funding in the world. But we haven’t taken advantage of our advantage.”

Even Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr joined the chorus, saying he was running out of monetary water to fight the fire of a sliding economy. He needed stimulus from the government. When Robertson was asked to respond, he stayed the course.

“The point is we’ve already done it,” he told Morning Report. But will you do more?

“We’ve already taken the decision to stimulate the economy and to spend significantly more. We’ve done that at the same time as balancing the books, so I’m pretty pleased about that”.

All of which means the decision to spend more now is at the same time predictably Labour, on a trajectory of increasing spending throughout the term and entirely at odds with what they’ve been saying.

The carefully prepared line being used by Robertson and Ardern this past week was that “it’s is the right time to do it”. Of course, that’s tosh. The need for massive investment in rail and roading didn’t turn up overnight. The interest rates didn’t suddenly drop or our debt levels suddenly fall into some safe territory. The labour force required to build isn’t suddenly trained and available. The logic hasn’t suddenly dawned on everyone, given the pleading has been going on for years (supported by the IMF, Standard and Poors and the OECD, for crying out loud).

No, the timing is right because in Robertson’s and Ardern’s minds the politics has now aligned with the economics. Newshub’s Tova O’Brien asked Robertson if the announced spend now, with details to come at the start of an election year, was an election year slush fund. Robertson declared that “deeply cynical”.

It’s phenomenal he could keep a straight face as he said it. National’s Simon Bridges couldn’t. He rightly snorted in disbelief. Of course the timing is political and deeply cynical itself.

So here’s what you can conclude, depending on your world view. First, this has been some astute ‘boiling the frog’ politics. Labour has slowly turned up the spending – like the heat under the frog – without any political harm. Indeed, when he announced his most Labour-ish spending plans yet, he got applause from Business New Zealand, Infrastructure New Zealand and bankers. It’s a political stroke of genius that Helen Clark and Michael Cullen would have wished for and must have the likes of John Key and Steven Joyce tipping their hats in respect. For an otherwise stumbling, bumbling government, this has been superb political management.

Consider the fact that Labour has significantly changed ‘the balance’, all the while insisting with each new increase that ‘the balance is about right’.

They are now heading into election year with a full purse and across-the-board support for spending it. What’s more, they’re focusing that spend on infrastructure – including roads – thereby pulling one of National’s key rugs out from under their feet. Add the road and rail spending to the Provincial Growth Fund, and this government will be all-but pouring money down the throat of regional New Zealanders just when they’re weighing up which box to tick.

All they need to do is find a couple of headline new policies to turn out the base and Ardern back on her game and they should be well on their way, even allowing for butter-fingered cabinet colleagues who keep finding way to drop even the softest lobs. Yes, yes… MMP, Winston and the general greased pathway of campaigns could undermine all that, but it puts them in a strong position.

Yet, to borrow Robertson’s indignation, it’s also ‘deeply cynical’. I asked often during the Key years why he and English weren’t using these low rate times to invest in this country. I wrote more than once that history will look unkindly on them when it’s remembered what they didn’t do when they had the chance.

Robertson and co will now be judged in the same light for two years wasted. All the jobs not created, the plant not built, the services not provided, the opportunities missed. Sure, if they get a second or even third term that allows more action, they may be able to claim it was all part of a cunning long game. And they will argue they are working with the political and coalition hand they have been dealt.

But the fact remains they have played that hand timidly. Robertson has spent two years knowing what he had to do, knowing what was best for New Zealand, but refusing to do it for political reasons (and dubious ones at that). Two years insisting that he had the balance right and was already stimulating the economy enough. His move now is proof that he didn’t and he wasn’t, and that he knows it.

We can only hope now that the money is spent and the infrastructure used with more ambition and confidence than process it took to get here.