Heather du Plessis-Allan should retire

The recent Steven Joyce fiscal hole debacle, although a complete strategic failure, identified a few key issues National will use to attack the Labour party over. This includes Labour waiting for the recommendations from a planned Tax Working Group before implementing any changes to their tax policy.

It's pretty evident that waiting for the recommendations is the right thing to do, being that a countries monetary situation changes over time. In terms of having the books and good governance, it would be remiss of Labour to make election promises by relying on out-dated information just to appease the right wing's braying over taxes.

However, this measured approach gives Labour’s opponents an opportunity to point at imaginary taxes and cry wolf. National in particular have been trying to appeal to people’s self-interest by falsely claiming that Kiwi’s would be financially worse off if there was a change in government.

Perhaps journalist Heather du Plessis-Allan, who will soon be spinning for the National party at Newstalk ZB, makes the best summary of the right wing’s current attack lines.

Yesterday, the NZ Herald reported:

Time for election scrutiny, not starry eyes

From the looks of things, Jacindamania is showing no sign of abating. And if that really is the case, it's time to snap out of it.

We're two weeks from election day. Now is the time for scrutiny, not starry eyes.

And that's even more necessary now Labour has pulled ahead in the polls and is a real prospect for government.

I would have thought that after nine long years in government the National party would need to be scrutinised more than the Labour party. After all, most government’s are voted out because they're judged on their track records.

Jacinda Ardern's party needs scrutiny on two fronts: so-called generational change and tax.

Ardern says she represents generational change. Yet she has just betrayed her own generation.

Ardern's pledge to keep superannuation at 65 will be a huge disappointment to people her own age.

Clearly the majority of people in Ardern’s age group don’t want to keep working for any longer than they have to. In fact that’s true of all working age groups, so I'm not sure what du Plessis-Allan is on about?

You'd have to have lived under a rock not to know there has been something akin to a generational war with superannuation as the battle ground.

Young people have been clamouring for the superannuation age to be lifted. They're paying for a huge - and increasing - number of Baby Boomers' pensions right now and for years to come.

Actually, the baby boomers paid for their own pensions because in most cases the government has taxed them accordingly over their entire working lives.

They're worried that by the time they reach Super age there won't be a pension on offer.

There's a good chance they're right.

So Heather du Plessis-Allan is merely speculating, or in other words fear-mongering about pensions not being available in the future. She has no statistics or examples to back up her and National's weak argument.

It's not so much that pensions really will become unaffordable, it's more that everyone else is lifting their pension age. The Australians have. The Germans have. The United Kingdom has. Ideas like that become fashionable and sweep the world and eventually end up in New Zealand. And that may happen before Ardern's generation qualify for a pension.

New Zealand should increase the retirement age because it’s fashionable? What kind of half-baked economic argument is that?

The calls to raise the Super age are so loud it was virtually one of the first things Bill English did as Prime Minister.

What a load of rubbish! Nobody wants the retirement age to increase except the National party and they’ve been whispering about it because even their coalition partners are highly skeptical. After all, increasing the retirement age is essentially just another unfair tax on physical labourers and Māori who have shorter life expectancy rates.

Furthermore, it took over eight years in government before National announced their retirement age policy, and English only did it because at the time National was riding high in the polls. I bet in hindsight the unelected PM wishes he hadn’t, especially with National's recent and unprecedented decline in support.

Yet Ardern has just committed her generation to paying for other people's pensions, while facing the prospect of missing out themselves.

All that can save her from this betrayal is something drastic like promising to limit pensions to only those 65-year-olds who really need it. And one of the only ways to do that is to promise means testing.

Who exactly is being betrayed?

Labour certainly isn’t betraying voters by saying they won’t implement National’s proposed pension policy. Taxpayers aren’t being betrayed because most of them are workers who will want to enjoy their retirement for as long as possible. There is no intergenerational betrayal because Labour will apply the same policy to all age groups.

What du Plessis-Allan doesn’t seem to understand is that Labour has allowed for the pensions of generations X, Y and Z etc in their fiscal planning. So either du Plessis-Allan hasn’t read the fine print properly or she’s being intentionally misleading like Steven Joyce.

The problem for National and their journalist attack dogs is that the pension was made universal because it costs less than leaving many impoverished elderly with health and housing related expenses they cannot meet. A universal pension system means less elderly miss out on the services they require, which not only raises their quality of life but also ends up saving the government money.

But that would probably be too brave a commitment this side of the election for Labour. At least, that seems the most likely scenario , judging by Labour's cowardice over its tax plans.

The problem for National and their negative attack campaigners is that the word tight, in relation to Labour’s fiscal plan, can easily be exchanged for the word accurate. In a brave new world, accuracy is what it's all about when it comes to fiscal accountability.

However the biggest hurdle for the right wing’s panicked media shills is that Labour’s current policy plank means Kiwi families will simply be better off. If Labour forms the next government people will have more social services, better health care, increased access to education, better public transport and the potential to attain a proper living wage.

Young people would be more likely to own their own homes under a Labour government and Jacinda Ardern is clearly offering voters a much better vision for New Zealand's future than Bill English is. The continued austerity measures hinted at by National just don't compare to the comprehensive alternative being proposed by a Labour led coalition government.

But don’t tell that to the ignorant Heather du Plessis-Allan.

Here's how you know Labour has a ready-to-go plan: it has already ruled out three taxes. Capital Gains Tax on the family home. Land tax under the family home. Raising income tax. You don't rule taxes out unless you know your tax plan doesn't need them.

That makes no sense at all. Even if Labour has a plan ready to go, which is a good thing, they can still make changes (outside of existing election promises) because of what the Tax Working Group advises.

What's more, it's going to become pretty hard for Labour to king-hit National on issues of trust when it's also starting to look a little untrustworthy.

In the real world the king-hit was already made by the media when English got caught out lying about Todd Barclay... it was made when they again got caught illegally spying on Greenpeace. Joyce then landed a king-hit on his own team when he started flailing wildly about a fiscal hole that doesn't exist.

The National party has got themselves bogged down in scandals leading into the election, and all the spinning in the world won't help them to now gain the higher ground.

National has fiddled about the edges while the housing crisis has grown exponentially worse. That issue alone has the potential to really burn English badly at the polls. A declining home ownership rate, 40,000 homeless Kiwi’s, unaffordable and unhealthy housing is essentially John Key’s woeful legacy for New Zealand, a terrible legacy of debt that can only be fixed by a change of government.

Hey @nzyoungnats, I made you a graphic. pic.twitter.com/jflL7Qgh2S

— Reed Fleming (@reedfleming) September 8, 2017

There is no chance of English landing a king-hit when his hands are bound by National’s numerous political failings which are clearly on display this election. While the knives can be heard sharpening behind his back, English has fallen into Joyce’s hole and been hog tied by his deputy’s flapping gums.

National trying to gain momentum with worn out rhetoric, numerous election bribes and pathetic memes about how bad Jacinda Ardern would be as Prime Minister while the facts slap National in the face is a campaign disaster of monumental proportions.

The chance for English to land a king-hit has come and gone with his lacklustre performance in the leaders debates. Right wing journalists can pine all they like for the bad old days of Teflon John... but those days are thankfully well and truly over.

Paula Bennett - Asshole of the Week

It’s pretty obvious that Paula Bennett isn’t fit to be a Member of Parliament let alone Deputy Prime Minister. Not only is she rather obnoxious in person, Bennett’s been in charge of the largest government portfolios over the last nine years and has essentially achieved nothing!

The statistics don’t lie, but unfortunately Paula Bennett does. Under her watch more people have became impoverished and homeless in New Zealand than ever before.

To obfuscate that terrible track record, Bennett’s made an art-form out of ignoring and hiding information which shows that we’re going economically, environmentally and socially backwards.

However, it’s not just Bennett’s woeful political track record and questionable history that people should be concerned about… it’s the fact that she’s been blatantly trying to mislead voters during the election campaign.

Yesterday, Stuff reported:

Auckland school responds to Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett's claim of infiltration by Head Hunters, drugs

A west Auckland school has denied a politician's claim that gang-related drugs are in its system.

Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett said she had witnessed, via police, "horrific", gang-related "stuff going on in our communities".

She said gangs' drugs were "partaking to our kids, in our schools" and it was happening in west Auckland with the Head Hunters.

"Bloody get your drugs out of Henderson High School if you actually want to make a difference in the society," Bennett said.

Her comment at The Spinoff's Facebook live election debate on September 6 drew a sharp response from Henderson High School.

Its executive officer Gillian Hill said "that's not true", but couldn't comment further.

Bennett appears to have gone right off the deep end. By saying that a school has a gang and drug problem on a live broadcast, the Minister is ensuring that the school’s ability to conduct its business will be adversely affected.

There is no doubt that because of Bennett’s untruthful statement some parents will simply move their children to a different school. That means Bennett has impeded the schools ability to function properly under the current system that awards funding based on the number of students attending.

Is there any evidence that Head Hunter gang members selling drugs have infiltrated Henderson High School? The answer is clearly no! Even if it was true, and it’s not, such matters aren’t resolved by such disorderly public announcements.

It’s entirely unacceptable that a Minister has made such a statement without any corroborating evidence to back it up. In fact it appears that Bennett has once again simply made incorrect assertions in order to look tough on crime.

Unfortunately for the National party there are some unanswered questions concerning Paula Bennett's history prior to her becoming an MP.

These include:

1. Did she mislead WINZ about her income?
2. Did she claim the DPB while also receiving an income?
3. Did she receive a government home deposit she wasn’t entitled to?
4. Did she declare that she was living with a partner while receiving a benefit?
5. Did she fail to declare her correct address?
6. Did she assault a minor in her care?
7. Did she smoke marijuana in front of a minor?
8. Did she take class A drugs?
9. Did she prostitute herself before the 2003 reforms made it legal?

Since we’re talking about unsubstantiated allegations, it seems only appropriate to give the Minister the same respect she’s shown Henderson High School.

In my opinion Members of Parliament must adhere to the highest levels of scrutiny and accountability. It’s in the public’s best interest that these accusations are resolved one way or the other so that voters can decide their validity and Bennett's suitability to be in parliament or not.

Personally I don’t care if an MP was a prostitute prior to becoming a politician. Sometimes people have to do difficult things in order to survive and the law was changed for a number of good reasons. I also don’t care if politicians have or do smoke marijuana. That law should be changed as well.

However I do mind that a Minister of the Crown has been accused of assaulting a ten-year-old boy in their care, and that the assault may have occurred while the Minister was inebriated. These are serious accusation that must not be ignored by the media, the public or the police.

If the PM had any balls he would stand Bennett down until these matters were resolved.

Bennett's statement came less than a week after the police minister said some New Zealanders – serious criminal members of gangs – had fewer human rights than others.

At the National Party's launch of a proposed $82 million crackdown on drugs and gangs on September 3, Bennett was asked whether she believed criminals had human rights.

"Some have fewer human rights than others when they are creating a string of victims behind them," Bennett said.

"There is a different standard."

Prime Minister Bill English later said his deputy got it wrong.

Making up lies about a school being involved with gang members selling drugs and claiming that human rights should be allocated depending on a persons circumstance must not be an acceptable part of any campaign strategy.

The vast majority of voters are unlikely to accept such dirty tactics from a Minister of the Crown. That’s why Paula Bennett wins this week’s Asshole Award. She's clearly not fit to be a Member of Parliament.

UPDATE: Paula Bennett admits that she lied about there being drug dealing gang members at Henderson High School.

Cynical petrol prices and Judith Collins

The Minister of Energy and Resources, Judith Collins, isn’t very happy that fuel prices have increased right before the election. Clearly this undermines National’s claims that everything is just fine and dandy, and there’s no need to change the government.

With most people’s wallet’s being emptier these days, Collin’s has been trying to gain public support by waging a fake war on petrol companies. That’s because the cost of petrol, with the government taking a whopping 66 cents per litre in fuel excise tax, is a very touchy political subject. National knows from experience that mishandling the cost of petrol debate could hurt them at the polls.

There is no question that most households and businesses are affected by fuel prices. This also means the economy is directly linked to the commodity of petrol. So of course the National party has to look like they give a damn about how hard people are being hit in the pocket at the pump.

Yesterday, Stuff reported:

Energy Minister accuses petrol companies of 'cynical' price rise around school holidays

Energy Minister Judith Collins is accusing the fuel industry of "cynical" price changes, as a battle brews over the accuracy of official data.

On Thursday Collins revealed she had written to fuel companies formally registering her disappointment at recent price increases.

While she said she did not have evidence to accuse the fuel companies of collusion, Collins said the companies were quickly matching each other on price movements.

Earlier this year Collins ordered a report into the fuel market. Shortly before the study - which warned prices may be too high - was released, official figures from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) suggested fuel margins plunged.

So Judith Collins and MBIE got the timing of the reports release slightly wrong. If what has been claimed is to be believed, the report caused petrol prices to decline in June, and not August and September when the most could be politically gained from the reports release.

The price of petrol is a very powerful political tool. For instance, in 2008, a huge increase in the cost of petrol right before the general election was used by John Key and the National party to undermine the Labour led government.

In 2008, Scoop reported:

2008: A Fresh Start for New Zealand

John Key MP National Party Leader

Well, I’ve got a challenge for the Prime Minister. Before she asks for another three years, why doesn’t she answer the questions Kiwis are really asking, like:

Why, after eight years of Labour, are we paying the second-highest interest rates in the developed world?
Why, under Labour, is the gap between our wages, and wages in Australia and other parts of the world, getting bigger and bigger?

Why, under Labour, do we only get a tax cut in election year, when we really needed it years ago?
Why are grocery and petrol prices going through the roof?
Why can’t our hardworking kids afford to buy their own house?
Why is one in five Kiwi kids leaving school with grossly inadequate literacy and numeracy skills?
Why, when Labour claim they aspire to be carbon-neutral, do our greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise at an alarming rate?

Why hasn’t the health system improved when billions of extra dollars have been poured into it?
Why is violent crime against innocent New Zealanders continuing to soar and why is Labour unable to do anything about it?

Those are the questions on which this election will be fought.

Strangely enough, after nine long years of a National led government, most of those questions can still be asked. For instance, why are grocery and petrol prices still going through the roof?

The main reason for the current changes in the price of fuel is because New Zealand imports around half of the oil it requires and since mid June the Brent crude price has gone up from $46 USD per barrel to around $54 per barrel. That's a 17% increase within three months.

Much of the rise in oil pricing is due to fears over supply because of a threat of another war. But some of the increase is also because of the falling NZD against the greenback. But those facts haven't stopped the National led government trying to grandstand over increasing fuel prices.

In June, Stuff reported:

Inside New Zealand's mysterious fuel price plunge

The AA and Gull say the big petrol companies are only offering low prices because of the imminent release of Fuel Market Financial Performance Study findings - which they have not seen.

The petrol companies, who have also not seen the report, say prices are low because of international price drops.

AA's petrol price spokesman Mark Stockdale says those two factors are not enough alone to justify the sharp drops.

"The AA monitors commodity prices and exchange rates because these are the things that petrol companies say lead to changes in the retail prices.

"It is good that prices are down, but our monitoring shows it is not because of what the commodity prices and exchange rates show.

"It is very unusual for us to see fuel companies cut prices by more than the reduction in those costs."

Energy Minister Judith Collins said the study into rising petrol prices, conducted by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, would be completed by the end of June.

Clearly whatever measures the National party have employed in the past to decrease or increase the cost of petrol at the pump right before an election haven’t been enough this time round.

Even with Judith Collins’ calculated release of a study into rising petrol prices to try and manipulate companies into charging less wasn’t enough. The increased cost of oil has overpowered Collins’ crude market manipulations.

This is yet another blatant attempt by the National party to trick people into believing that they actually give a damn about the rising cost of living. They don’t, and that’s another very good reason to change the government at this election.

Māori party on the brink

The Māori party's campaign, like their coalition partners, appears to be unravelling at the seams. In the last few days we've had co-leader Marama Fox give a shocker of an interview where she claimed Labour putting Kelvin Davis in as co-leader was a "token gesture".

Fox then insulted Davis and other candidates again at the Spinoff debate last night. In my opinion Duncan Greive's write-up of the Māori party MP's misconduct was far too kind.

Obviously a large factor in the Māori party’s demise is their unrepentant arrogance. Combine those negative traits with a bit of potential electoral bribery, and you’ve got a recipe for political disaster on polling day.

Today, Newshub reported:

Māori Party candidate Wetex Kang accused of offering cash credits

Māori Party candidate Wetex Kang is being investigated by the election watchdog following complaints his campaign has been offering cash credits online.

Mr Kang, the party's first candidate of Asian descent, is contesting Auckland's Botany electorate.

The Electoral Commission on Thursday confirmed it was looking into complaints about him offering virtual credits on popular Chinese social media app WeChat as part of his campaign.

"The Electoral Commission has received complaints about the use of 'hong bao dollars' on WeChat as part of Māori Party candidate Wetex Kang's campaign," a commission spokeswoman said.

"The Commission is looking further into the complaints, and has sought further information from Mr Kang."

When contacted, Mr Kang declined to comment on the claims.

Personally I would have liked the Māori party to have succeeded in reducing things like the disproportionate amount of Māori incarcerated in our overflowing jails. But it’s increasingly evident that the Māori party is part of the problem and not the solution.

The decision on whether the Māori party survives or not will be made in the Māori electorate of Waiariki, where Labour candidate Tamati Coffey is neck and neck with Māori Party candidate and leader Te Ururoa Flavell.

Today, Radio NZ reported:

Tough battle for the Waiariki seat under way

Māori Party co-leader Te Ururoa Flavell knows he has a battle on his hands to keep the seat of Waiariki.

It's a two-horse race between the current Māori Development Minister and a relative newcomer to the Māori political scene, Labour candidate Tamati Coffey.

…

Despite Mr Flavell comfortably taking the seat in the last election, Labour won 38 percent of the party vote compared with the Māori Party's 22 percent.

The challenge for Mr Coffey will be to ensure those party votes are accompanied by a tick for him as MP - if that happened, the race could be very tight.

It’s pretty obvious that by accepting a few crumbs from National’s table, the Māori party have done themselves irreparable political damage. By compromising over what they initially stood for, they’ve effectively become a shadow of their former selves.

But instead of recognising their main problem, the Māori party has instead arrogantly displayed their disdain for the people who initially put them in office by supporting policies that actually hinder Māori achievement.

Those disproportionately affected by things like poverty and homelessness have been ignored by the Māori party, who voted for many of National’s socially destructive policies.

Thankfully there are good alternatives for voters. If people want to see a government adopt policy that doesn’t impede Māori progress at nearly every turn, it’s time to change the government.

Farmers shouldn’t fear the Greens

The Green party often comes up with policy solutions that the two main parties end up adopting. In fact they’ve been a very politically influential party on the cross-benches, helping government’s develop and implement good social and environmental ideas into workable solutions.

Their Clean water, great farming (PDF) policy is no different, and will likely be embraced by the next National (to a degree) or Labour led government, even if the Green’s aren’t a part of it. In this way the Green's have been the most effective opposition party in New Zealand's short political history.

On Saturday, Stuff reported:

Greens to tax pollution to help fund sustainable farming

The Greens are promising a tax on pollution, set to raise $135 million to be reinvested back into sustainable farming.

Green Party leader James Shaw said the policy would introduce a nitrate pollution levy charged on dairy farmers who "continued to pollute our soils and waters".

"There's no point spending money cleaning up rivers if you don't look at what's making them dirty in the first place," Shaw said on Saturday.

Shaw said the revenue from the levy on nitrate pollution from agriculture would raise about $136.5m a year, starting with intensive dairying, and would fund a package of "game-changing support measures" farmers could use to reduce their impact on the environment.

This is a fantastic and practical policy that will actually help farmers pay for things like riparian planting and other measures to reduce nitrates entering our waterways.

By rolling the policy out over a number of years the government could boost farmers who are already working towards sustainable farming practices.

In fact the farmers who are reducing their pollution levels now will be rewarded under the Greens’ scheme.

The levy would initially be set at $2 per kilogram of nitrate that was lost to land and water per hectare of farm, per year. Initially, the levy would apply only to dairy farms but a "fair pollution levy" would be extended to all forms of agriculture and horticulture over time.

"Dairy intensification over the last three decades is directly linked to rapidly declining water quality," Shaw said.

In other measures, the Greens would extend the Sustainable Farming Fund with an extra $20m a year and invest $210m over three years to create a Transformational Farming Partnership Fund, to focus on issues such as farming for clean water and adapting to climate change.

The party also promised to increase funding to the Landcare Trust to $16m over three years, reward tree planting by farmers and landowners, allow accelerated depreciation on dairy farm equipment to help farmers free up capital, and support organic farming through a new national certification scheme with new funding of $5m a year.

As well as being good for the environment, this policy looks set to help add value to our dairying sector. The world is crying out for organic products, which gain a premium price wherever they're sold.

Of course the largest lobbying group for farmers has opposed any type of restriction on nitrates from entering our waterways.

On Saturday, Radio NZ reported:

Farmers reject Greens' farming-pollution policy

Federated Farmers has slammed a Green Party plan to put a levy on nitrate pollution from dairy farming, saying it would actually cost the environment.

Federated Farmers vice president Andrew Hoggard said the idea was "unfair", "full of holes" and likely to actually cost the environment.

"They also come from other types of farming and they also come from urban sewage treatment plants. So if we're going to be fair about this than you've got to tax all of those, not just tax one sector of society.

I don’t see a problem with starting at the top first. Intensive dairying is by far the worst polluter, and should help pay to clean up the environmental damage they're causing.

It seems as though Hoggard didn’t actually read the policy release properly, because the levy would eventually be extended to all forms of agriculture and horticulture.

Furthermore, urban sewage plants treat their waste in a process that reduces environmental impacts. Invariably, people pay for that waste through their rates, so what is Hoggard talking about? It’s the leaching of nitrates directly into waterways that needs to be addressed.

Mr Hoggard said DairyNZ and others already offered research and expertise, and no government fund would be able to give better advice.

The levy isn’t just about advice… it’s about remedial measures to actually reduce pollution.

"Farmers are actually doing a hell of a lot in this space already, we're already doing quite a bit of work on this and if we're just going to be taxed for it, it's going to take away money which we would otherwise have spent on the environment and quite frankly I think they'd probably end up spending most of the revenue they get on policing it."

He said by his calculations it would cost his farm $12,000 a year, which could be spent on solutions.

What is Hoggard talking about? The money raised will go towards solutions, like making our waterways swimmable again by giving farmers a financial incentive to reduce pollution.

The problem for National is small farm holders will actually benefit from this policy. Most farmers will have additional funds available and any development to reduce pollution they undertake will likely increase their properties value.

A majority of farmers, especially those who adopt the scheme early, will reap the rewards of becoming more eco friendly businesses.

Most farmers have nothing to fear from the Greens' clean water policy. It’s large-scale intensive dairying that is being targeted with this great Green party initiative.

National looks desperate

As we get closer to the much-anticipated 2017 election, the National party is looking increasingly desperate. From making up allegations about fiscal holes to tough on crime rhetoric and beneficiary bashing, Bill English is playing a losing hand of out-dated ideas to empty venues all over the country.

But don’t take my word for it. Some of New Zealand’s most well known journalists are also pointing out one of the biggest flaws in National’s campaign strategy, which is policy developed on the fly because of desperation.

Yesterday, Tracey Watkins on Stuff reported:

Desperate and dangerous times on the campaign trail

Regardless of whether you buy into the argument that Joyce was just spinning or being deliberately misleading  - , National is not going to back down. With a campaign built on fiscal management, it's not about to concede any ground on the economy to Labour.

And National is something it wasn't a month ago - and that's desperate. Till now, it's ministers had never seriously contemplated losing the power and perks of office.

It’s not just the perks of office National should be worried about losing; it’s the fact that after nine long years they have lots of political skeletons in their closets to hide.

A change in government would allow more of their corruption and policy failings to become public knowledge. In fact that's likely the main reason for National’s current desperation.

Yesterday, John Armstrong on 1 News reported:

Joyce looks a proper fool, but it won't stop National throwing everything it can at Ardern

But the current ruling party does not enjoy the luxury of being able to wait for things to go wrong.

As Joyce has demonstrated, desperate times may call for desperate measures.

With little over two weeks to go until polling day, Labour will thus be bracing itself for National to conduct a none too subtle scare offensive on economic policy which will be short on fact and long on painting Labour as the fiscal equivalent of a methamphetamine addict when it comes to wasting money.

In chucking everything it can at Ardern — including the kitchen sink if that helps —National will not give a toss about the criticism that will be hurled in its direction for suddenly going negative.

National should give a toss because some of that criticism is being reported in widely read publications, and therefore equals lost votes.

It’s pretty clear Armstrong leans towards the political right, which makes his assessment of the National party all the more telling.

Labour’s finance spokesperson Grant Robertson also called out National’s ill-advised strategy.

On Monday, Bernard Hickey on Newsroom reported:

Election 2017 Live: Leaders clash in fiery debate

Robertson said Labour would also be asking Government departments to find efficiencies to offset some of the inflation and population pressures on costs.

"I think this is a desperate act from a flailing Finance Minister," he said.

"He's trying to mislead the New Zealand public. I believe they'll see through it."

Robertson reiterated Labour's previously stated policy of creating an independent office for budget analysis within Parliament, which would analyse Treasury's budgets and price the respective policies in a way similar to the independent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and Britain's Office for Budget Responsibility.

Even Cameron Slater thinks Bill English looks decidedly desperate.

The problem for National is there won’t be any significant increase in poll ratings by getting tough on crime or beneficiary bashing. The people who support such archaic policy ideas are already pretty entrenched in their respective belief systems and who they vote for. The vast majority won’t switch just because National is able to gain a few headlines by creating a bit of controversy.

Instead, National’s more intelligent and politically engaged supporters will see the desperate announcements for what they are; a grab for attention without any real substance. There is evidently no change from the failed policy direction of the last nine years and National is still the same old party, just without the Teflon.

National actually runs the risk of losing middle New Zealand voters to Labour by trying to siphon support from NZ First with badly performed policy announcements.

The error in National’s campaign methodology is apparent for all to see, even more so since Joyce’s attack on Labour’s fiscal plan instead blew a hole in National’s bow. There is no question this gaffe was a huge own goal for campaign strategist, Steven Joyce. The backlash over his economic nonsense will likely continue to eat away at National’s credibility well into polling day and beyond.

The increased pressure from such campaigning malfunctions could make National even more prone to mistakes and stressed about the prospect of a life on the opposition benches... compounding their already clearly evident desperation.

By employing such negative tactics, National runs the risk of going the way of the Act party, which is basically the basket case of New Zealand’s political right wing parties. Announcing controversial policy just to get attention has seen their support plummet to only 0.3%, and they now stand on the edge of political oblivion.

If a desperate National party continues with their failed and dirty political strategy, a change of government is almost assuredly on the cards. In fact it’s more likely now than this time out from the last three general elections.