With no Extra-Special Secret Surprise in sight, I was honour-bound to eat my words for breakfast this morning. As delicious as I usually find my own writing, I have to say that it tasted better coming up than going down.
I don't know if I had preempted and spoiled the leak or whether I was just plain wrong, but my stomach is retching enough for me to steer clear of gossip-mongering (and tequila) for a while. It's back to the speech-notes and spreadsheets for me, then.
Pocket protector, ON!
[Note: Oh.]
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The National Party conference was "upbeat", and although the crowd wasn't very energetic, that was probably more to do with the demographics than the mood.
A lot of old people, as is the norm for political conferences these days, and the 2:1 male:female ratio reflected National's support base. Also a damn lot of suits. There were the classic Tories, the farmers with their weathered looks and perpetual scowls, the rotund businessmen with trophy wives. Most interesting were the post-war generation of empowered women, who are the cool, rich aunts of the nation - independent and right-wing.
In the young generation there were the snappy suits of the successful entrepreneurs and whiz-kids, money bursting out of their designer pockets; in contrast were the true believers - the Thatcher fetishists - who firmly believe in the small state, hand-up not a hand out, low taxes, etc., even though it seems that they are not very good at making money themselves.
The common sentiment among attendees was cautious optimism. They've seen the poll numbers, and on a rational level, they know that it's not real - the election is months away and the campaign hasn't started yet. But seeing the numbers before them, they all feel that it *could* be real. But they also know that the moment they *think* it's real, then they'll get complacent and lose it all. So they *believe* it's real, while trying not to *think* it's real, even though they actually do.
I never realised not counting unhatched chickens could be such a complicated exercise.
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A better indication of National's tax policy came out - both John Key and Don Brash talked about "the golden goose" (or rather, geese): the rich people whose taxes fund the majority of public spending in this country.
John Key:
The lack of reward for effort is one of the single biggest reasons that 600 people this week will get on a plane and jet off to Australia, most never to return.
In NZ today, 11% of all taxpayers pay half of all the personal tax collected. All they can look forward to under Labour is more of the same.
We simply cannot afford to keep bleeding our best and brightest overseas. They're the very people we need.
Brash:
[The current tax system] destroys the culture of enterprise and initiative... which tells our brightest and best that they and their families would be better off in Australia.
It sounds like a move towards a flatter tax system; but they can't *just* cut the top rate, otherwise what would Mainstream New Zealand think? So I'm predicting a regressive (i.e. more cut for richer folks) 2-6% cut across the brackets, costing around $2.17b a year.
Think I'm wrong? You'd be in good company. (I lost horribly on the snap election sweepstake.) Write in to with how much you think this tax cut package will cost, along with your name (real or otherwise) and any extra details you'd like to add to your prediction. (This calculator might help.) The winner will win the next best thing to immortality - fame and glory on the blogosphere!
Brash's speech got a warmish reception - the standing ovation was obligatory, and he didn't really earn it. Most of the people I spoke to thought it was "good", but nobody had any unqualified praise. The general reaction was about a 6.5/10.
It came as a surprise to me, because I'd actually give the speech a 7.5. There was a lot of the naff "we need to kick them out of government and put us in" sort of thing, a fair amount of name-calling (thank god he didn't call Helen "Prime Moneywaster" and Cullen "Wastemaster-General", like Key did).
Oh, and he managed to declare that he is no longer against wars, nukes and er... apartheid:
I was brought up to believe that to be Christian was to be socialist. I took myself out of school cadets and at the age of 18 registered as a conscientious objector. I marched in demonstrations against nuclear weapons and against whites-only All Black tours to South Africa. My Masters thesis, written under the guidance of a neo-Marxist economist, deplored New Zealand's dependence on foreign capital. And I voted for the Labour Party for years.
But I have come to my senses!
Speechwriter, you bad. Oh, and extra badness for:
We owe it to our children, and we owe it to our children’s children, to give them that future.
But, uh, aside from some lame lines and his renunciation of the struggle against apartheid, he actually said something quite useful:
[The] tired and increasingly discredited Labour Government... has simply run out of steam, run out of ideas, and has no bold plans, no big aspirations for our future.
And even when they do have new ideas – like their early childhood policy, or their recent decision restricting school bus services – it turns out that at heart they’re small, mean and petty ideas, just applied on a nationwide scale.
Does Labour have an aspiration for the future apart from the status quo?
The slogan goes that "You're better off with Labour"; it might very well be true that we *are* better off, but it misses the point. *Will* we be better off with Labour?