TL;DR: Just as a new poll shows a near dead heat between the left and right blocs, both Labour and National are pursuing low-target strategies that avoid making big risky promises and instead focus on splashy, but ultimately tweaky policies.
Yesterday, National proposed allowing young people to use their KiwiSaver funds to pay for their rental bonds, which will reduce their ultimate retirement savings but ensure landlords can get tenants easier and faster. It’s a gimmick and a distraction from the core need to build hundreds of thousands of affordable homes to own and rent.
Meanwhile, Labour dreamt up a last-minute policy last night that is designed to make it look tougher on both gangs and ram-raiders, but would require Police and the Courts to monitor and prove online postings, along with proving conspiracy and incitement between adults and kids. It’s a gimmick and a distraction from the decades-long causes of endemic poverty, inequality and societal dislocation.
All the while, the climate appears in the very process of triggering tipping points to heat the planet to life-threatening levels, and rents and house prices are taking off again because neither party can even propose, let alone agree, the types of emergency responses necessary to address our housing and climate crises. Gimmicks don’t deal with crises. Voters understand it, which is why more than half said they wanted a wealth tax in a poll out last night.
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