Words to watch

Written By: - Date published: 9:20 pm, October 11th, 2008 - 2 comments
Categories: articles, election 2008 - Tags:

Two headings in today’s Herald caught my eye. One from John Armstrong (who I don’t always agree with but who is most often an obersver of skill) who says “Tax plan turns divide into ideological chasm”:

After months of deliberately lying low on policy details, National has finally been obliged to put its head above the parapet. The policy shows that Key does stand for something. At last, Labour has something substantial to shoot at….

A family on $40,000 will get just $22 a week extra. They are $10 better off under Labour. Under Labour, the maximum weekly cut anyone earning above $80,000 can get is $55.

Under National, the country’s highest-paid public servant, Social Development Ministry chief executive Peter Hughes, whose salary is between $530,000 and $539,000, would get a weekly tax cut of $235. So much for sharing the sacrifice in hard times.

National MPs’ “barely buys a block of cheese” mocking of Labour’s cuts when they were pushed through Parliament after the Budget rings somewhat hollow.

Those on low incomes could at least buy a full block of cheese with Labour’s cuts. They won’t be able to do so with the extra sum National is offering them.

Then “Time for a rethink Bill” from Mary Holm: ”

Employees are the current favourites in the KiwiSaver game, with the self-employed and other non-employees the underdogs. At first glance, National seemed to be levelling the playing field. But now it appears to be tilting the field the other way.

What’s more, refereeing the game will turn into a nightmare.”

All in all some testing times ahead for Mr Key and his National team.

2 comments on “Words to watch ”

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  1. Anita 1
    11 October 2008 at 10:18 pm

    I’m baffled by the whole National tax cuts thing. Whatever was announced was going to hurt National; they’d given everyone unrealistic expectations so reality was always going to be a let down.

    But why release such a damaging policy? And why in such a messy and ill-thought-through way?

    Has the strategy been to dump all the damaging stuff in one hit as early as possible to give time to dig there way back out?

    If so, why?! They were always going to lose points in the polls as the election got closer, why speed the fall? Why given Labour so long to publicise the down sides of their policies?

  2. Mikey 2
    11 October 2008 at 11:53 pm

    Mary Holm’s profile picture scares me.