When he was Leader of the Opposition, John Key promised not to raise GST. Within two years of becoming prime minister, he had raised GST. He denied he had broken a promise but it was glaringly obvious that he had broken a promise.
But did people care that he had done so? Not very much, if at all.
Two months after having committed what is widely considered to be one of the worst crimes that a politician can commit, Key was basking in a favourability rating of 81 per cent - a record for a prime minister.
That should be a sober reading for Jacinda Ardern’s opponents who have been rejoicing in her first broken promise as a sign that she is as fallible and flawed as the rest of us.
It is widely assumed that the fastest way for a prime minister to fall out of favour with the public is to break his or her promises.
Trust - the most vital component in any political relationship - fast evaporates. Once gone, it is almost always gone for good.
Things are not quite as simple as that, however.
Sure, voters don't like broken promises. But the public is more tolerant when the prime minister doing the breaking is respected and his or her government is relatively popular and they don't get hit too hard in the hip pocket and it doesn't happen very often.
There are thus distinct parallels in the circumstances surrounding Key's hiking of GST back in 2010 and the decision by Ardern and her Cabinet colleagues to put on hold the implementation of a major policy which would have made it cheaper for everyone to go to the doctor.
It might turn out to be a case of "shock, horror -prime minister breaks promise - suddenly nothing happened".
What has actually happened is that the Labour Party has flouted the contents of its 2017 election manifesto by postponing an across-the-board $10 cut in GP fees which was scheduled to take effect from July.
Without question, Ardern has failed to keep her word.
The pledge is 100 per cent loud and clear. There is no possibility of misinterpretation. There is no ambiguity. There is no potential escape clause written into the policy which could be activated was the close to $260 million required to fund the policy be needed to be spent elsewhere - as now seems to be very much the case.
The policy's language speaks of something that "will" happen.
It set the July 1 starting date in concrete.
What seemed to be a cast-iron guarantee of implementation has suddenly rusted away in the weeks prior to the Budget.
Both the Prime Minister and David Clark, her Minister of Health, are saying this latest boost in primary health care will now be "phased in" over the three-year term of the current government, rather than all in one go.
That "reprioritising" of spending begs more questions than it answers, however.
Few matters define what it means to be Labour more than the party's focus on the cost of going to the doctor.
Labour's decision to put on hold the implementation of one of the party's cornerstone policies is thus very telling.
It tells you that the funding crisis in the public health sector might well be as bad as Ardern, Clark and Finance Minister Grant Robertson have been warning in recent weeks, and that it is projected to very quickly get even worse.
It tells you other holes are starting to appear in the fiscal fabric inherited by Robertson - holes as sizeable as the potential $500 million-plus bill to eradicate the crippling cattle disease Mycoplasma Bovis.
It tells you that D-Day as in Delivery Day is fast approaching for Labour- that the pro-Labour white-collar unions who represent teachers, nurses and other public servants are getting testy about the progress of wage and salary negotiations.
It tells you that Labour's Cabinet ministers are getting the heebie-jeebies about the vast pay equity settlements that await the state sector further down the line.
It tells you that big-ticket "transformational politics" that Ardern insists will be her legacy carries a big-ticket price tag.
It tells you that despite these pressures, Robertson is determined to unveil a surplus in his first Budget - and more than a token one at that.
It also tells you that the chickens have really come home to roost following the atrocious bidding war in which all the parties indulged during last year's election campaign.
In that regard, Labour's policy to make it cheaper to go to the doctor was an overly-expensive and poorly-targeted reaction to National's attempt to outflank its chief enemy in an area to which Labour claims exclusive rights.
In the cold, hard light of current fiscal pressures, it is understandable that the policy has been put on hold.
We will have to wait until Budget Day to get the figures to be able to tell the exact story.
Ardern and Clark cannot have it both ways, however.
They cannot lap up the pre-election applause which greeted the announcement of Labour's promise of cheaper visits to the doctor only to then put the policy on hold post-election for the sake of fiscal convenience - especially after Ardern made assurances that funding for the policy was "locked in".
The policy was supposedly locked in even more by Labour's canning of National's tax cuts, which had been scheduled to take effect last month had National remained in power.
It was widely assumed that the above-forecast flood of tax revenue into the Treasury's coffers would give the Government even more flexibility when it came to spending options.
Clark has sought to remind people that regardless of what commitments a political party might make in order to attract votes, implementation of those commitments is contingent on the degree of leverage that party can exercise over coalition and support partners.
In this case, however, Clark is in red herring territory.
Neither the Greens nor New Zealand First would wish to be seen blocking cheaper visits to the doctor.
To the contrary, the coalition agreement between Labour and New Zealand First requires the implementation of the latter's policy of free health checks and eye tests for the elderly.
At first glance, the cost of such a scheme might be assumed to be prohibitive. It isn't. Assuming a take-up rate of around 80 per cent, the annual bill for the health checks and eye-tests would come in at most at around $45 million. Quite possibly, that figure might be much less.
That will be something of a sideshow, however.
Budget Day this year will be all about fiscal credibility - both Labour's and National's.
The onus will be on Labour to provide further and substantial ballast to its assertion that National is guilty of chronic underfunding of the country's infrastructure, both social and economic. Cabinet ministers have been popping up every other day claiming that “nine years of National neglect” cannot be remedied in a single Budget.
Until the relevant data becomes public with the reading of the Budget, that is a one-sided argument -and thus not particularly illuminating.
Likewise National - in lacking the requisite information - cannot back up its contention that Labour's deliberate dashing of expectations of what the Budget will be able to deliver is a consequence of it over-promising in Opposition.
At the end of the day - and Budget Day looks like being a very long day - Labour and National cannot both be right.
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