Off the menu

The main parties are ditching the gourmet food to cater for core constituencies in a lean election year.

- DANYL McLAUCHLAN

Politicians call it swallowing dead rats. When their policies are beloved by the party and its supporters, but disliked by the wider public, the leadership will usually ditch the policies. It’s no use having a bold and transformational manifesto if you can’t get elected. If you introduce sweeping reforms in government but then get voted out and all your work is dismantled by your gleeful adversaries, what have you actually accomplished? 

So National is “reviewing” its deeply unpopular plan to cut taxes for those earning over $180,000 on the pretext that it’s worried about inflation, and Labour has begun its long-promised policy dump. Chris Hipkins has – with great relish – swallowed three large rats. The first was the hate-speech law changes recommended by the royal commission into the March 15 terror attacks in Christchurch. This legislation ran into trouble when neither the Justice Minister nor the Prime Minister could answer media queries about whether criticising Baby Boomers would constitute hate speech and thus be punishable by imprisonment. Last year, the reforms were watered down: the criteria would be restricted to religious discrimination. Anti-Boomer rhetoric would remain legal. And now they’re gone. Or rather, referred to the Law Commission for a slow and contemplative review on the dubious premise that it will fix the problems that the royal commission, Human Rights Commission and the Ministry of Justice could not.