Set the table for bread and butter - or in this case, fruit and veg: Labour fired its opening election campaign salvo on Sunday with a starkly populist pitch for tax-free produce. The party is pushing ahead with the pre-announced policy despite hiccups in the reveal and near-universal opposition from experts - including in its own ranks: a clear sign the party is putting polling ahead of principle.  In this week's Focus on Politics, Deputy Political Editor Craig McCulloch assesses the political calculus behind Labour's vote-grabbing GST policy.

Even Labour’s own ministers have spoken out against this policy, it genuinely baffles me why they decided to go ahead with this.

  • flambonkscious@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    4·
    11 months ago

    It’s s an easy vote steal.

    It sounds great the first time you hear about it and if you don’t really digest it much you don’t see the flaws.

    Plus, there’s that old ‘all the other countries are doing it, so it must make sense…’ cop out

    • absGeekNZEnglish
      5·
      11 months ago

      Appeal to popularity is a common fallacy.

      • DaveMA
        2·
        11 months ago

        What if you’re competing in a popularity contest?

        Political parties aren’t trying to do what is best in the long term, they are trying to get voted in at the next election (sometimes this involves doing what is best in the long term, but not that often).

    • IlovethebombOP
      3·
      11 months ago

      I really hope the voting public will see this for what it is.

        • flambonkscious@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          11·
          11 months ago

          A receding tide lowers all boats?

          I don’t really know where I’m going with this, I just thought it was funny

          • BalpeenHammer
            1·
            11 months ago

            The rising tide is the dumbest thing economists ever thought of. It actually typifies the short sighted scientifically illiterate nature of economics thought.

            I guess they never realised there was a finite amount of water in the world and rising tides in one place meant ebbing tides in another.

  • chrizbie
    1·
    11 months ago

    I gotta say I’m not particularly impressed with the big two at the moment, like many I thought this sounded great at first but in reality it’s just a nonsense

    • IlovethebombOP
      1·
      11 months ago

      I’m really glad people are seeing through this actually.