There is no denying the $4 billion gap that Paul Goldsmith missed is an extraordinary cock up.

You wait to see the PREFU numbers before launching your economic policy. And yet when they arrive you fail to see a $4 billion adjustment and use the May budget numbers anyway.

But the upside is the policy is still live. And more important, the policy at last, is a major shift away from the barrage of welfare and largesse that seems to have passed for a plan to get this country out of the economic hole that it's been driven into.

Labour's approach is welfare. You have an issue, you get a cheque. The cheque uses borrowed and printed money. And it can't go on. You don't tax your way out of a recession, you grow your way out.

Australia has worked this out, and we could do a lot worse than look at the way Australia has conducted their lockdown. It was more successful than us, that's why their Q2 GDP number was -7 and ours was over -12. They took the Rugby Championship by being entrepreneurial and not afraid to move.

And Greg Foran, the head of Air New Zealand this morning in the Sydney Morning Herald, saying elimination is not the answer and the countries that take a slightly more open approach, like Australia, are going to benefit most.

And don't forget Australia, in answer to the economic mess they share with all other countries, is cutting tax as a way out of trouble.

Tax cuts, as opposed to tax increases, gets money into the economy. Money leads to confidence and growth. Tax is your money, and the trouble with Labour and the left in general, is they think they're superior to you. They think they can take your money and spend it better than you.

That's called arrogance, and it doesn't work.

Look at what big government has got. A Provincial Growth Fund scheme worth billions that Labour now want to drop. A fees-free scheme worth hundreds of millions that Labour now want to drop.

Would that money have been better off left in your pocket at your discretion? Yes, it would. Australia has worked that out, and that's why they're winning.

So National can knock themselves for not spotting what should have been spotted. But the basic principle that it's your money and you know what best what to do with it is just as powerful as its ever been.

And along with the business depreciation move, which hasn't got an where near the coverage it should have, is the sort of approach that for the first time in this campaign  actually offers a genuine alternative beyond welfare, more borrowing, a general lack of trust in the  populace, to think for ourselves, and be allowed to get on with our lives.