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.
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
Appeal to popularity is a common fallacy.
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).
I hate how true this is.
I really hope the voting public will see this for what it is.
A way to reduce their bills at the supermarket?
A receding tide lowers all boats?
I don’t really know where I’m going with this, I just thought it was funny
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.
This is brilliant - thanks!