OPINION: Wellington seems to have been trying to set all kinds of records for miserable weather of late. Maybe that explains the national temperature, which feels stuck between cranky and gloomy.

Or maybe it was Acting Prime Minister Winston Peters who jinxed things. On the day he threw his lot in with Labour, Peters issued an ominous warning about dark days ahead.

On Monday, 4000 workers are due to walk off the job at two of the biggest government departments - Inland Revenue and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.

ABIGAIL DOUGHERTY/STUFF Auckland nurses protest outside Auckland City Hospital.

Read more: Latest plunge in confidence sends 'strong warning signals' and talk of interest rate cut

It's only for two hours but it's the first time in 22 years, according to the PSA union, that Inland Revenue staff have downed tools.

The first nationwide nurses strikes was averted, but another is planned for Thursday. Angry teachers are also still threatening to strike - though there's a lot of water to go under the bridge yet, given the strike action isn't pegged to take place till early next year.

But the ripples of unrest will likely spread through the public service as a rolling maul of pay deals come up for re-negotation.

Business confidence, meanwhile, seems to keep sinking further into the gloom. There were two more surveys out last week taking the pulse of business, one of them confirming that business confidence had hit a seven-year low.

That date seven years ago, March 2011, is significant because it relates to the hit in business confidence from the Canterbury earthquakes.

It seems a change of Government has delivered a similar-sized shock.

Was this what Peters meant?

Before her maternity leave, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, and Finance Minister Grant Robertson were spending a lot of time in board rooms and at corporate events in an effort demystify Labour and the new Government.

Robertson is still doing the rounds.

The Government has also taken a softly softly approach to its revamp of industrial relations laws - one of the fears driving business confidence down, though others are policies like the rise in the minimum wage.

A round of industrial action will feed the ongoing uncertainty.

The Government has made it clear it is sympathetic to the demand for higher wages in the public sector. But its time frame hasn't firmed up beyond "one day".

It will be wary of a trickle down effect on the expectations of other public sector workers. But it can be a juggle looking like you're lending a sympathetic ear while trying to play hard ball. It is especially hard when the state of the Government's books keep looking healthier and healthier.

Robertson was struggling to explain why there was still not a whole lot of extra money in the kitty for teachers and nurses when the operating balance before gains was massively ahead of forecasts, at $5.2 billion, while net Crown debt was $1.1b below forecast.

But having pinned his colours to the mast of fiscal responsibility, Robertson knows it would drive down business confidence even further if he suddenly flung open the cheque book.

That juggling act seems to be a constant for Labour. There must be more and more days where it feels like it can't even catch a break from some of its own supporters.

The release of Kiwibuild eligibility criteria set off howls that it was betraying its own working class roots by setting the income caps too generously. The howls were loudest on the left.

But the stampede of first home buyers to sign up suggests that, politically, Labour got it right.

There are other reasons beyond meeting the aspirations of first home buyers for the Government to crank up Kiwibuild. There will also be a fiscal stimulus from more Government spending on housing and infrastructure that will flow through to business.

In the more immediate future pensioners, and people on the accommodation supplement and working for families should start noticing from this week that they have more discretionary income from the Government's families package and winter energy payments.

That may or may not dispel the mid winter blues, though it must help.

But a lift in the weather probably wouldn't hurt.