Labour will release its election-promise costings today after leader Phil Goff was taunted by Prime Minister John Key on Wednesday with calls of "show me the money".
Mr Goff said in Nelson he would reveal his party's fiscal plan, which would involve borrowing $2.6 billion more than National over three years.
During The Press leaders debate in Christchurch, Mr Key scored major points with the audience by calling out to Mr Goff as the Labour leader talked about spending priorities.
The answers Labour provides today have the potential to make or break the party's run to the election.
Any holes in the costings will be pounced upon by party critics.
National runs a website updated by campaign chairman and Transport Minister Steven Joyce that indicates that, so far, Labour's promises total about $17 billion.
Mr Joyce said yesterday Labour still had not produced a credible set of figures that showed how Mr Goff and finance spokesman David Cunliffe would pay for billions of dollars worth of extra spending and soaring debt.
"The question is not that difficult and even in the absence of Labour's long-promised spreadsheet, Mr Goff should have been able to explain where the billions of dollars of extra borrowing over the next four years is coming from. He couldn't."
Mr Cunliffe would not be drawn on the details of the release but said all the party's policy announcements were costed along with the "debt track".
"That will show the difference between Mr Joyce's fantasy and the actual situation."
In some areas, there was not much difference between the two major parties in operating spending and funding priorities and both parties would get to surplus by 2014-15, Mr Cunliffe said.
Labour would get there first as capital gains tax kicked in.
There would be a "little bit more borrowing" by Labour in the near term but that would be covered by the capital gains tax.
It was predicted the capital gains tax would raise $26 billion over 15 years.
Labour has stated it would not partially sell state-owned energy companies Meridian, Genesis, Mighty River Power or coal producer Solid Energy. Nor would it sell down a further shareholding in Air New Zealand.
Mr Key has asked where Labour would fund its promises from if it did not gain the $5 billion to $7 billion National expected to get from the sell-down.
The Otago Daily Times analysed the dividend yields of the SOEs this week and found they were well down on what could be expected from a commercially driven company.
Mr Cunliffe said the SOEs would play a more prominent role in the economy and they would be expected to provide higher dividends if Labour won office on November 26.
"We want them to be an efficient engine of growth."
Mr Cunliffe received a boost this week when a BusinessNZ survey, released on Monday, showed that people did not believe the Government had an economic plan.
At the Deloitte-BusinessNZ election conference, political parties got to talk about their plans.
"People were nodding their heads on Labour's plan and asking where was the plan from National. Our plan doesn't need selling assets to make it happen."
Mr Cunliffe was confident that when the economic costings were revealed, voters would see a "big, bold and sound" plan.
Mr Joyce said National had put Labour's tax and spending numbers into the Treasury fiscal model which showed how the Government's books would be affected out to 2025-26.
"What it shows is that Labour's truckload of extra debt is not just over the next four years but would persist all the way into the future. It would peak at 35% of GDP, much higher than the peak of 29% under National."
All that money would have to be borrowed from foreign banks at a time when the world was rejecting more debt, he said.
