Monday, March 08, 2010



The politics of fairness

On Saturday, Herald columnist John Armstrong slammed opposition to the government's plans to hike GST on the poor to pay for tax cuts to the rich as "the politics of envy".

Bullshit. This isn't about "envy" - its about fairness. The idea that the poor should pay to subsidise the rich - that poor people in Manukau should chip in a few dollars each to pay for John Key to have another holiday in Hawaii - is simply obscene. And this is something we recognise instantly in the case of Brian Tamaki.

But the government's plan is simply Tamaki's behaviour writ large. The poor will give, through GST, and the money will be redistributed to the rich as tax cuts. Its Robin Hood in reverse, its not fair when Brian Tamaki does it, and its not fair when National does it either.