National’s secrecy about its policies
By Gordon Campbell
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