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Mike's Minute: The political choices are becoming clearer, let's see who wins

Author
Mike Hosking,
Publish Date
Mon, 8 Aug 2022, 9:44AM

Mike's Minute: The political choices are becoming clearer, let's see who wins

Author
Mike Hosking,
Publish Date
Mon, 8 Aug 2022, 9:44AM

The chunk of the media who are still in love with the Labour Party are on some sort of campaign right now to undermine Chris Luxon.

They have taken two events they perceive to be major issues and tried to turn them into even more major issues.

One was the Te Puke post. Two, was the tax policy confusion. Neither are big deals; both are beltway only of interest to those obsessed with the Wellington political environment.

To be fair, both were mistakes, both look like a bit of a fumble, and both in a slick machine should not have happened. So, it is okay to question current performance.

But by the time National got to their conference over the weekend they were doubling down on tax. They were allowing us to keep as much of our money as possible. That approach is to be encouraged.

Ironically, the best that one media outlet could do, was traipse off to an economist from the Council of Trade Unions who gave them the obligatory line about their tax policy numbers not adding up. The media at times are embarrassingly lazy or Machiavellian.

Just what is it you are expecting from an economist that makes his living in the unions? Are you expecting him to think tax cuts are good? Of course, you are not.

So when a unionist says the numbers don’t add up, what he means is under the current expenditure you can't take in less money and still pay for what you currently do. The point he doesn’t make, and the point the media who should behave and never point out, is you don’t necessarily want things the way they are.

The public service is bloated, spending on consultants has blown out by millions, and expenditure on ideological race nonsense has blown out by billions. Billions more has been spent on centralisation of services like health.

We can't forget the debacle that is the polytech merger that is bleeding money, lost a CEO on full pay, and hasn’t actually even started yet.

We don’t want that sort of expenditure, it's wasteful expenditure.

So no the numbers don’t add up, because once you cut the waste, the largesse, and the ideological nonsense you are saving yourself a fortune. Plus, that money stays in the pockets of New Zealanders. It's not hard.

What's good about it is as we go to the election, the choices are increasingly stark.

You want to keep your money or do you want more of the wastage? A good clear choice, let's see who wins.

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