When there’s an election campaign happening, how much do you care about the cost of the policies the political parties are pushing?  

Or, more to the point, how willing are you to trust the politicians when they say they've done the numbers, and they all stack up?  

My willingness to trust them is very low. Which is why I think we will be all the poorer for ACT and NZ First voting down the plan for a publicly-funded outfit that would have done the numbers and worked out the actual cost of election policies.   

Because until now, all we’ve been able to do is take the politicians on their word. And it’s going to stay that way.  

Not that the concept of a separate costing agency is an overnight thing or a new thing. The idea has been around since 2016, when Green MP Metiria Turei first raised it.   

In fact, what she wanted —and what the Labour Party wanted too— was broader than what Finance Minister Nicola Willis eventually proposed to Cabinet. But which is now history thanks to the two minor coalition parties.  

Nicola Willis’ version would have made the government of the day’s financial information available to political parties when they were putting their policies together.  

But even that watered-down version was too much for ACT and NZ First, with David Seymour saying that it isn’t warranted, because he doesn't think it would stop messy election-year debates about how party policies might be paid for.  

But it raises the question about election promises and whether us voters are still sucked in by the political promises on their own, or whether we are more discerning and whether we think it would be good to have more transparency. More scrutiny.  

I want more scrutiny. Because without it, all we have to go on is gut instinct. Or the believability of politicians. All politicians of all stripes and colours I’m talking about here – all we can do is take them on their word. 

Before I hold up National’s tax cuts as an example of why we need a publicly-funded agency to go through political policies with a fine-tooth comb, let me remind of you of that daft idea Labour had before the last election of taking GST off fruit and vegetables. 

At first blush, it might have sounded like a good idea. But I wasn’t sold. I don’t think many of us were, because we had no idea how effective it would be.  

Not just from the perspective of whether it would actually make fruit and veggies more affordable, but also what it could mean for government coffers. Grant Robertson always poo-pooed the idea but then, somehow magically, came around to the idea just before the election.  

And there he was, telling us that he’d done the numbers and he’d realised that, actually, it would have all stacked up financially and we’d all have kiwifruit and broccoli coming out of our ears.  

But without the proof, it was all hot air.  

Same thing with National’s tax cuts. We were told it was going to mean more money in our pockets, but not a lot was said about how out-of-pocket the Government might be because of it, and what that would mean down the track.  

And what happened? The tax cuts went ahead, and government revenue dropped. 

That foreign buyers tax was another one. The only expert analysis we had to rely on was what all the so-called “independent experts” roped-in by all the parties had to say about the policies they were roped-in to comment on.  

And all that did was create all the usual noise and confusion and we were back to voting on gut instinct because who knew what the hell to make of what was being said left, right and centre?  

How different things would be if all of these brilliant vote-catching ideas were put through the wringer by an independent, publicly-funded agency. 

How better informed we would all be. And how careful the politicians would be about selling us snakeoil policies that we only end up regretting falling for.