Politics
Parade of bribes
by Jane Clifton
What’ll it be, New Zealand – the money or the bag?
Never mind pork barrel. We’re being wooed with a whole herd of plump pigs – admittedly some of them flying, and a lot of them swine. But has there ever been an election like this? You daren’t make up your mind who to vote for, because the next day will doubtless bring a competing bid. Both major parties seem to have adopted Selwyn Toogood as their spiritual leader – though at this rate of vaulting bribery, we’ll get the money and the bag, whichever party we choose.
Unwholesome though this cash splattery might seem, there is a reassuringly sound ideological basis to what both parties are promising. And it’s been many, many elections since we’ve been able to say that.
Labour’s pitch is classic left: redistribution of wealth. Take the money from those who earn most, and give it to those who earn the least and are needy. If there’s a single equation that could secure Labour this election, it’s the one that goes: why should a single person on $60,000 get the same tax relief as a person supporting a family on $60,000?
National’s pitch is classic centre-right: if it’s your money that the government has over-confiscated, then it should be you, pro rata, to whom the money is refunded. No favourites. All earners are equal in the eyes of the state. How they organise their affairs – reproducing, studying, low-impact Morris dancing – is up to the individuals concerned. The state’s business is to leave them as much of their earnings as possible, and get out of their way. If there’s one equation that could win National the election, it’s the one that goes: I work hard and pay a lot of tax, so why should my tax relief go to someone else, just because they’ve made a different lifestyle choice than I have, which leaves them shorter of money than I am?
Of course, round the edges, the ideology has had to be compromised – and just as well. Labour, for instance, has had to embrace tax cuts – after years of slating the cutting of tax rates as the devil’s work. When it first promulgated Working for Families, it was a “top-up” from the state, in recognition of the extra costs involve in raising future citizens. Now, with tax cuts suddenly fashionable, this “top-up” is recharacterised as “tax relief”. (Labour can’t bring itself to use the “c” word).
For its part, National has caved in to public allergy to asset sales, and agreed to stomach the retention of TVNZ, and of Kiwi Bank, even though it can make no philosophical defence of state ownership of either. And it will retain aspects of the Working for Families, even though it regards this as welfare dependency enslavement of the middle classes.
But at least this time there are two clear, red- and blue-flavoured choices. And serious bribes are on offer, too big to be sensibly measured in packets of chewing gum and chocolate fish.
Still, without wishing to pour cold water on such bounty, both major parties face a high price politically, if they actually get to occupy the Beehive.
For Labour, that price is loss of long-term fiscal credibility. We’ll take the money, thanks, Michael – but how can we ever again take quite seriously a man who keeps stumbling over great lumps of money he didn’t know we had? If your spouse bought you a measly pair of socks for your birthday, pleading poverty, then rocked up with a brand new BMW for you for Christmas, would you believe that the money had suddenly, unexpectedly materialised in the joint account? Not really. You’d take the motor – and note the number of a good divorce lawyer, because it would be apparent that sooner or later, whatever was really going on with your spouse and your money, you’d need to sack him/her.
That’s likely to be our new attitude to this government. Cullen’s painfully hard-won economic credibility is now in question. Either he was disingenuous about the government’s revenue inflows, or he presides over a bunch of officials who can no longer predict with any accuracy what’s in the coffers and what’s not. The latter excuse is appealing, given those officials’ humiliating gaffe about the cost of Kyoto. But it’s hardly reassuring. What if they got all that other stuff wrong, too? The difficulty of forecasting GST income is often cited – but we’ve had lumpy GST inflows for nearly 20 years now. Our bureaucrats can’t have grown worse at estimating GST, rather than better at it.
Even if those naughty Treasury wonks have been deliberately hiding sacks of money from Dr Cullen, the parade of bribes has been just too, too cute.
Suddenly stumping up with the dosh for private childcare, having just weeks earlier announced it would be rationed only to right-on, non-profit community operators, was pretty breathtaking. It’s so thumpingly obvious that Labour is backfilling the big hole Clark dug a few months back, when she ordered mums to get back to work and do their bit for GDP, that cynicism is unavoidable.
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