Espiner gets it too

TVNZ's Guyon Espiner on the way the PREFU has changed the campaign:

The election is not now about whether you get $30 a week from Labour's tax cuts and $50 from National's.

It's not about whether you get an extra $20 a week, but whether you still have a job and can pay your mortgage on a house that's actually worth something.

Espiner agrees that the election is now all about trust, but he characterises it as trust in economic management. I'd characterise it differently. Recessions aren't about poor macroeconomic statistics, but about people - people who are going to lose their jobs, and need to fall back on the state in their time of need. The question then is who do we trust to care for the victims (remembering that any of us could end up as one of them), minimise the damage, and ensure they can get on with their lives when the economy picks up again? The people who slashed welfare benefits? Or the people who have maintained them? The people who slashed health spending? Or the people who have expanded it? The people who don't care about the poor? Or the people who do?