National’s secrecy about its policies
National’s secrecy about its policies
What does this
sound like? A tiny group of politicians develop policy and
hide it from the rest of their colleagues – all the better
to unveil these policies in a way that will give the voting
public the least possible time and opportunity to understand
the full implications of what is being proposed. Roger
Douglas may not be in the next National Cabinet in person,
but clearly, he will be there in spirit.
The
Kiwisaver fiasco has revealed all this, and more. It has
underlined that the National Party under John Key are
replicating the most secretive and un-democratic qualities
of the Lange/Douglas team of the mid 1980s. Policy will not
be exposed to daylight until it is about to be enacted.
Caucus colleagues cannot be trusted, and need to be kept out
of the loop. The outcome of this secrecy ? The party figureheads screw up.
Thus, National’s own industrial relations
spokesperson Kate Wilkinson told a forum of human resource
managers that National would scrap the compulsory employer
contributions to the Kiwisaver scheme.
When this hit
the media a few hours later, Wilkinson frantically
back-tracked and claimed not to have understood what she had
been asked. Key’s subsequent explanation and
‘correction’ of Wilkinson’s statement was that she had
not been part of the policy design. So much for her
credibility - the party’s own industrial relations
spokesperson is being kept out of the loop on core matters
concerning employers ! Grudgingly, Key revealed that the
National Party policy, while not yet ‘ finalised’ would
involve compulsory employer contributions.
Ah, but at
what rate ? At the current levy, with its $20 a week tax
credit offset ? Or at the level the scheme will entail in
four years – whereby someone on $45,000 would be looking
at an $1800 a year employer contribution, offset by a $1040
annual tax credit? Key wasn’t saying. Nor is he saying
whether National prefers to use those funds to finance even
bigger tax cuts ( than those in the Budget ) that he hints
about delivering, but which has also not confirmed.
So much for the need for business “ certainty’
that National bangs on about in almost every other forum. In
this case, it is happy to leave employers uncertain while -
wink wink, nudge nudge – dropping clues they may not need
to plan for the higher levels of compulsory contributions
further down the track. Meanwhile, the 600,000 New
Zealanders currently enrolled in the Kiwisaver scheme are
being left in the dark about National’s true
intentions.
So much for transparency, and fully
informed electoral choice. The public is being required to
buy a pig in a poke. National is proceeding on a deliberate
course to hide from public scrutiny and debate - for as
long as it possibly can - what it intends to do on tax, on
Kiwisaver and much else besides. When taken together with
its intention to re-open the case for FPP, it is a reminder
of the party’s fundamentally undemocratic instincts.
In fact, in its mode of operation and stance towards
the economy the National Party appears to have learned
nothing – and changed very little – since the early
1990s. All that has changed has been its ability to better
hide its intentions from the public. This too, isn’t all
that novel. During the 1980s, Labour had a similar
changeling as its popular figurehead.
ENDS