They will be working overtime in the Department of Finance from now until election day attempting to come up with a sensible estimate of what all the election promises of the major parties would cost if they turned out to be of the core variety and the necessary legislation actually got through the Senate.

We have been keeping tabs on the promises made by the Coalition Government since the May budget (see The Grass Roots Gravy Train) and an impressive list it makes, but Labor is not to be outdone. There are 230 carriages on our opening Labor Party Gravy Train and you can find the full list here.

My personal favourite is undoubtedly the Mums and Bubs Health Initiative announced by Nicola Roxon back in May. The planned expenditure on “comprehensive Indigenous child and maternal health services” might only be $92 million but what a photo opportunity Labor gets for the money. All those breast feeding mums and beautiful babies goo gooing at Kevin 07!

The Opposition Leader is out to prove he can operate a parish pump as well as Prime Minister John Howard too. Kevin Rudd has perfected the technique of making a rather grand sounding statement like “I will invest in an education revolution” that allows him to promise a few million here and a few million there as he wanders around marginal electorates. There is $284 million for Western Australian secondary schools and $20 million for on the job training for Queensland students.

Mr Rudd might have scoffed at Mr Howard promising nearly $50 million to keep the Mersey Hospital at Wynyard operating but he has not been averse to spending the odd million of taxpayer money in the marginal Braddon electorate either.

There’s the promise of $12 million for a manufacturing centre in north west Tasmania and a host of spending initiatives designed to secure the future of the state’s forest industry. Water is clearly a Labor favourite and while the Coalition may be worrying about those irrigators in the Murray Darling Basin, the Opposition Leader can see the votes in city dwellers worried about their lawns. There’s the greywater program to save water in thousands of Brisbane homes and shadow Minister for Water Anthony Albanese can make the same kind of announcement in every electorate he visits and he has done just that in many of them. $20 million will go to the cash starved Shell Oil to assist with a recycling project in Geelong and $30 million for water projects in Western Australia.

But don’t think that Labor is getting on top in this battle of the big spenders. John Howard is a real contender as he showed this morning with his latest initiative – $40 million over the next four years to increase the number of school buses equipped with seat belts for students in rural and regional areas.

This funding will be used to provide subsidies of up to $25,000 a bus, and will be paid directly to private rural and regional bus operators and see seat belts installed in at least 375 school buses in non-metropolitan areas each year, with the Commonwealth ultimately funding seat belts in at least 1500 regional school buses.