Sep 30, 2026 · 13 min · 9 segments
**THE BEST BITS IN A SILLIER PACKAGE *(from Thursday's Mike Hosking Breakfast)*** Go Buy a Calculator/This Week's Shiny Thing/Another Poll Best Not Mentioned/Preaching To the Enrolled/Pies Seem On…
But before any of that, yes, Labour's fiscal policy laid bare a little bit yesterday with these preview numbers.
Do we need to buy them a calculator? I think Nicola Willis is right and wrong, as it turns out.
She is right to add up the fiscal whole Labour's dug with no detail on how it's to be executed.
$18 billion and counting.
Minus five for investment boosts.
They've cut from the net $6.5 billion policy, so we've got $13 billion left to explain.
Now, this is where I think Willis is wrong.
She suggests the new taxes would all come from the minor parties.
Nah, she would say that, wouldn't she, because it suits them in a campaign to scare you.
I believe that, which leaves us with an issue.
There is not $13 billion to be cut or rearranged.
There just isn't.
Which leaves me to believe that like the pre-food promise on pay equity, which he wormed out of, he'll be looking to worm himself out of this one as well, worm himself out of the $13 billion, perhaps by arguing income in four years, five years, six years, seven years.
In other words, a multi-parliament promise.
And then...
The CGT itself.
Treasury told them 3% on average for house price gain.
But that's now changed.
Treasury don't see 3% in the next parliamentary term or anywhere close to it.
Hipkins didn't know that yesterday because, as he so embarrassingly admitted, he hadn't actually read the document.
But the same people who said 3% now say not 3%.
So why is the policy unchanged and with it all the money he's spending he doesn't yet have and now due to the forecast will most likely never have? That is more debt, the very debt he said he wouldn't incur because remember he's delivering the surplus as originally promised.
But before any of that, yes, Labour's fiscal policy laid bare a little bit yesterday with these preview numbers.
Do we need to buy them a calculator? I think Nicola Willis is right and wrong, as it turns out.
She is right to add up the fiscal whole Labour's dug with no detail on how it's to be executed.
$18 billion and counting.
Minus five for investment boosts.
They've cut from the net $6.5 billion policy, so we've got $13 billion left to explain.
Now, this is where I think Willis is wrong.
She suggests the new taxes would all come from the minor parties.
Nah, she would say that, wouldn't she, because it suits them in a campaign to scare you.
I believe that, which leaves us with an issue.
There is not $13 billion to be cut or rearranged.
There just isn't.
Which leaves me to believe that like the pre-food promise on pay equity, which he wormed out of, he'll be looking to worm himself out of this one as well, worm himself out of the $13 billion, perhaps by arguing income in four years, five years, six years, seven years.
In other words, a multi-parliament promise.
And then...
The CGT itself.
Treasury told them 3% on average for house price gain.
But that's now changed.
Treasury don't see 3% in the next parliamentary term or anywhere close to it.
Hipkins didn't know that yesterday because, as he so embarrassingly admitted, he hadn't actually read the document.
But the same people who said 3% now say not 3%.
So why is the policy unchanged and with it all the money he's spending he doesn't yet have and now due to the forecast will most likely never have? That is more debt, the very debt he said he wouldn't incur because remember he's delivering the surplus as originally promised.
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