David Cunliffe will start the election campaign next week with a speech on labour's economic direction. But beforehand, he's decided to "clear the decks", dumping the GST off fruit and vegetables and $5,000 tax-free policies:
“We will be removing the previously proposed $5000 tax-free zone and the GST exemption on fresh fruit and vegetables.
“This decision frees up around $1.5 billion per annum.
“While these were worthwhile policies, we believe there are better ways to help struggling Kiwi families.
It will be interesting to see what those policies will be - the GST plan in particular was a policy which convinced me on its merits; OTOH, it may be the case that that money is better spent on housing and basic public health. We'll have to see what he's proposing before we can judge whether this was a good decision or not.
Meanwhile, remember how last year the Labour membership voted against raising the superannuation age and instead demanded the caucus consider other options? Cunliffe has just fucked them, saying that he still plans to raise it to 67. So what does Labour stand for again? Degraded social services and a life worse than the one your greedy, grasping parents enjoyed (oh, and toadying to business by proposing yet more NeoLiberal austerity). Why would anyone want to vote for that?
