The kids (the minor parties) are getting excited over what their post-election pocket money will be, but they do not seem to have realised that Mum and Dad have run out of money just paying for their own treats.

Parties such as the Greens, Maori Party and NZ First have scores of high spending policies, and don't seem to realise that they are unlikely to get any of them. The cupboard is now just bare.

Best Play of the Week

Labour gets best play of the week - for finally committing to no more significant spending promises. It only gets a C- though, as they should have made it before their $2 billion of uncosted promises.

Many people do not realise how dire the fiscal situation is. The PREFU showed a decade of deficits. That is getting very very close to having a permament structural deficit.

Since PREFU global credit has all but ceased and sharemarkets have crashed. That decade of deficits has already got worse.

Now the budget forecasts do allow for an extra $1.75 billion a year of new spending. But all but $500 million has already been allocated for the next year. The spending promises from both major parties will account for that, so there really will be nothing left for the minor parties unless one cuts spending elsewhere (which Labour will not do) or raise taxes (which National will not do).

The only minor party that may be happy being part of the next Government is ACT. They judge their satisfaction over how much spending they get cut, not how much more they create.

The polls are showing a 4th term Labour Government is quite possible. It would be fascinating to observe how they would cope with a fiscal environment in which they can't just throw money at problems.

Worst Play of the Week

The worst play of the week goes for the Greens. It relates to their decision to support Labour after the election. The decision itself is not at all remarkable (in fact my colleague Mr Cohen might want to reflect on why the decision got so much airtime when it was no more newsworthy than ACT announcing they would back National).

What I give the Greens a D for is their criteria. They had criteria on climate change, public transport, the Treaty, foreign wars, civil rights, workers rights - in fact every right you can think of.

But totally missing from their criteria was any reference to policies that will create the wealth to pay for all of their spending. They seem to think money grows on trees (arguably with carbon credits, money does now grow on trees) and that there is no need to have policies that will boost economic growth.

As the world grapples with a global financial crisis, I wonder how a Labour/Greens/NZ First/Maori Party Government would cope with the effects in NZ? Judging by the Greens criteria, they don't even care so long as they can keep spending money. At some stage they may realise the two are linked.

Electoral Finance Act Breach of the Week

ACT have been found to have breached the old Electoral Act by not including free office space for its MPs in its donation return for 2005. A D for lack of disclosure.

There is an argument that as the office space was donated to the MPs for their parliamentary use, not the ACT Party for its political use, it did not constitute a donation. And to be fair to ACT, there has been no official ruling previously on this issue.

However the prudent thing to have done would be to ask the Electoral Commission at the time whether such a donation of office space for MPs needs to be disclosed.

The ramifications of the Electoral Commission decision may be far reaching. I recall in the 1980s a company paid for an additional staff member for the then Opposition Finance Spokesperson, to help with her duties. Under this ruling, that would have to be disclosed also.

Scandal of the Week

Last Friday Ian Wishart revealed that Shane Jones had granted citizenship to Yang Liu, despite the opposition from departmental officials. Mr Liu had multiple names and passports and had it seems committed offences in Australia and China.

It was revealed that Mr Liu had made a donation to Labour's Chris Carter and to National.

Wishart says that there was more than one donation to Labour MPs, and further that Liu is an Asian organised crime boss.

If this is true, and Wishart's facts have stood up to scrutiny so far, then this raises huge questions over the integrity and competence of the decision making in this case. What has been a B- scandal would be elevated to an A+.

The issue will not be that an (allegedly) bad person got into NZ. This happens. The issue will be why a Minister over-rode his officials and granted citizenship just three months before the election - after a delay of three years due to concern from officials.

This needs more than an internal departmental inquiry. A Department can not inquire into its own Ministers.