It's been said that the oxygen of politics is publicity but if that's really the case then Labour is gasping for air at the moment and it can blame itself.

The party today celebrates its 100th birthday and to mark it Andrew Little will announce the first tranche of its housing policy, appropriate for a party that gave us our first state house in the Wellington suburb of Miramar in 1937.

The Prime Minister of the day Mickey Joseph Savage rolled up his sleeves and lugged a dining table through a cheering throng gathered on the front lawn and across the threshold, apparently dropping it as soon as he was out of sight.

Little will be rolling up his sleeves in Auckland today, where, in the sprawling city and at what time remains a mystery. His media minders weren't letting on, if they did they mused, they'd be giving the announcement away. Yeah well, it'll undoubtedly be in South Auckland where his MPs have been beavering away with the hard pressed and homeless.

There'll be no messages from Buck House for this centennial though, the Queen will be blissfully unaware of the Labour Party milestone and how it's going to celebrate it, as most of us were until last week, at least when it came to the events being planned. It gives all the appearances of being organised at the last minute with housing taking centre stage, essentially because the market's gone mad.

Reflecting on the past century the relatively new President, Auckland academic Nigel Haworth, who few political insiders are even aware of, proudly listed the changes the party's made to what he says was to the lasting benefit of all Kiwis. There were the obvious ones he noted, the 40 hour working week, free education which is now being chipped away at, state housing which is diminishing by the day, homosexual law reform and civil unions.

Glaringly omitted from the achievements was arguably Labour's most significant and controversial period that saw in Rogernomics, which took this country out of the Muldoon economic ice age to the meltdown which laid the foundations for the much more realistic economy we have today.

Professor Haworth also seems to have forgotten the smell of uranium on the breath, overlooking the Lange Government taking on the might of Uncle Sam, declaring this country nuclear free, and surviving.

Labour over the years has been the party of innovation, while National's been the party of consolidation. We're now waiting for Andrew Little to step up to the plate.