Now why would we say that? Well, it appears that Labour is going to head into election year promising all things to all people. That's all well and good, but the devil will be in the detail, and we've seen precious little of that. And the most important detail of all is where the money will come from. Sure, Phil is promising to hike taxes on rich people, but as the Dom-Post notes, he has stopped short of promising tax cuts for low and middle income earners. We find it strange that no-one at the Labour Party conference felt the need to press Hil on that particular issue!
And then there's the vexed issue of foreign ownership, where Labour seems to be intent on out-flanking Winston Peters! Once again, there has been precious little detail from Phil Goff; little more than a series of sound-bites interespersed with applause from the party faithful. Labour has obviously done the focus group work on this, and the powers-that-be have decided that a little bit of xenophobia won't go amiss. So much for Labour being the party of diversity!!
This morning's Herald is onto it though, and calls the Goff-father on his flip-flop - the Herald notes:
The last Labour Government and the present National Government have approved most foreign applications to buy New Zealand land.
During its nine years in power, Labour allowed 650,000ha to be sold; in 20 months National has approved the sale of 31,000ha.
Oh dear. This hardly sounds like a prescription for change for New Zealand from Labour; it strikes us as more like a desperate grab for a headline or two from which to gain a bit of traction. We certainly don't see the policies that Labour announced at the weekend as being circuit-breakers, especially given that they have yet to be costed.
And whilst the MP for Te Atatu may not have been at Labour's conference, we reckon that a certain union leader had thrown down the gauntlet to Phil Goff; just what the Goff-father didn't need!
UPDATE: The faults in Phil Goff's proposals are already visible; DPF links to the Q&A interview with Phil Goff yesterday, where Goff seemed unaware that policy would be in breach of signed agreements with Australia. Oh dear; how sad; never mind!
2 comments:
As to the Goff-father making an offer that I "can't-a refuse", I'm afraid that I'm in a position that I "can't-a understand"!
I see the dark hands of the EPMU, and of course they are the union of the army of shallow, intellectually bereft repeaters masquerading as MSM Journalists, and the recently rejected, by a normally compliant voter group, in the CHCH mayoralty, The Troughmaster General.
Remember how the wailing mob would attack every attempt by Don Brash to find current solutions to intractable problems in our economy as "flip flops" even if the were actually restatement of long held policy albeit with a tweaked emphasis. Now the EPMU members of Three Hats Little's major source of NZLP funding and policy development who would have us believe are unbiased seekers of the truth but are in reality just repeaters of socialists press releases are vainly trying to gain traction for the NZLP whose front bench is dominated by the same people who maintained the government so decisively rejected by the electorate only two years ago.
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