Steve posted this morning that even Granny Herald’s patience appears to be wearing thin waiting for National and Key to announce some policy detail: “National must get a move on… we need to hear some serious policy soon”. Turns out they’re not alone.
Rod Oram (SST):
…for it to be a genuine debate, National needs to unveil its own big, deep strategy the principles, priorities and practical policies… So far it has done nothing of the kind… But the biggest worry of all is one for voters. Has National actually been doing enough deep thinking about how it will use government power? The signs aren’t promising…
Fran O’Sullivan (NZ Herald):
[Key’s] critique of the Budget lacked a killer punch. He floundered in subsequent interviews and was caught hopping when asked for National’s alternative: his bottom lip curling just a bit too much, and the open shoulder shrug too much in evidence when he seemed to realise his answers lacked conviction.
Tracy Watkins (Dom Post):
…the appearances of Dr Cullen and National’s finance spokesman Bill English on TV One’s Agenda programme the past two Sundays running are an enlightening tale of two finance ministers… One the one hand, we had Mr English treating us to a display more suited to a minister wearied and wrong-footed by too many years in government – if he started the programme determined to give little away, he must have ended it impressed with his own success at giving away less than that.
Sunday Star Times Editorial (offline, 25 May 2008):
Key’s explanations of where the money would come from are thin and sometimes plain silly. Cancelling an embassy in Sweden will make no fiscal difference. Nor would wholesale sackings of bureaucrats: even huge cuts in this area would save at most some hundreds of millions, when Key will need billions… Key promises that he won’t cut social services and it is difficult to know whether to believe this or not. National’s record from the early to the mid-1990s in this area is utterly disgraceful, a record of ludicrous structural revolution and deep cuts.
It’s starting to look rather like the Earl of Auckland might not be as well dressed as some had supposed.
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