One of the advantages of being in political opposition is that you can get away with a hell of a lot without providing much in the way of detail.

This was aptly demonstrated at the Labour Party’s annual conference over the weekend on a couple of fronts.

First, let’s start with the TPP. There’s been some fiery rhetoric from the party’s leader Andrew Little, who’s adamant the trade deal breaches his party’s bottom line in that it prevents a Government from legislating to ban land sales to foreigners.

On the face of it this would seem to logically mean that Labour must oppose the TPP. But it’s not quite that simple. You see during a 22 minute stand up with media, where Andrew Little was crystal clear a bottom line had been breached, yet he specifically avoided saying that this meant his party opposed the TPP.

It is possible his evasion on this may be driven by caucus sensibilities. There are strong, and split, opinions on the TPP in his caucus and Little may be protecting his position by not imposing a TPP decision on his MPs until the caucus has reached a final position of its own.

The other aspect that adds murk to the debate is the fact that any legislation enabling the TPP is highly unlikely to contain a clause that relates to the land ownership issue. It means Labour won’t actually be required to put their position under the microscope of a vote. In a sense it could be seen as a clever political play. Labour is now free to push its moral position as hard as it likes without facing anything definitive in terms of consequences.

And this ability to take a strong moral stand without immediate consequences was also reflected in the speech Little delivered to his conference. Ending child poverty, increasing health funding, and dealing to wealth inequality were all prominent as Little promised to rebuild the Kiwi dream.

What was absent, however, was specific detail of how this is to be achieved. At first glance it seems some sort of tax reform has to be on the agenda. It is, after all, the simplest way to effect wealth distribution. But any confirmation or denial of this will have to wait. Little said with the election two years off the detail of their policies will be released later.

While this is not an unusual political ploy, no political party likes to play all its cards too early, it does mean Labour is talking a big game with no actual explanation of how it will achieve its lofty goals.

You can bet this is a point the Government will be quick to highlight.