Island Life by David Slack

Well nowhere in the brochure does it refer to a $500 per week tax cut.

It refers to being on average $500 a week better off, which is a combination of tax cuts, reduction of red tape and regulatory burdens, holding government spending to the same amount plus inflation and economic growth created by said measures.

It refers to being on average $500 a week better off, which is a combination of tax cuts, reduction of red tape and regulatory burdens, holding government spending to the same amount plus inflation and economic growth created by said measures.

In other words, it's a figure plucked out of Roddo's lovely derriere.

MikeE, are you being intentionally funny?

Well I wouldn't say 'lovely' ..... but surely of all the parties they understand laissez-faire capitalism? if they cut red tape doesn't that mean that there will be an oversupply (of red tape) on the market - thereby pushing the prices down - we'll all get stuck with our share of this surplus red tape thereby devaluing it's share of our promised $500 to nothing

OTOH just before the following election Labour will snap it up at rock bottom prices for election hoardings and swoop back into power ....

Rodney I tell you it's all going to go horribly wrong ....

Wa there a tango demo after you left?

Wild Bills Steakhouse. A classy venue where they will happily serve the laydeez both types of wine (red and white). I imagine they'd mix them in the same bucket, oops I mean glass, if you asked nicely, too.

a tango - well it was a political meeting - certainly fancy footwork at question time

I stayed on Prime after the great Warriors win to watch Rodney at work. Impressions count. When Hide was asked if he had anything to hide over the question of his own Party Funding, I thought for a moment that he showed some anxiety at the thought the spotlight might be turned on him. Perhaps not. And yet….

Act's numbers are fishy. According to Statistics NZ (whose numbers I'm inclined to trust), average household income for the '06/'07 year was a shade under $68k. That works out to $1,308 per week, which I assume is a gross figure rather than a net one. Tax on $68k works out to a bit under $18k, so for convenience we'll say that net average household income is $50k, or $962/week.
Somehow we're expected to believe that households will be better off to the tune of over half their net income, taking them to a position better than their gross income? I smell a Tui billboard coming!

MikeE - you also seem to conveniently forget about all the extra "user-pay" charges that households would be burdened with.

MikeE - you also seem to conveniently forget about all the extra "user-pay" charges that households would be burdened with.

And that's where their numbers just don't make sense. If Act cut income tax to zero, the average household would be most of the way to that $500/week. But, they'd have to fork out inordinate sums of money to afford things that are currently subsidised, if not outright funded, by central gummint: Healthcare, education, roading, domestic security (the cops don't come cheap)... So they're better-off to the tune of their current income tax bill, but much worse off overall because they're now saddled with the user-pays ideology of Roger's disciples.

I stayed on Prime after the great Warriors win to watch Rodney at work. Impressions count.

I caught a little of it. I would never vote Act, but it was nice to hear him say two good things about Helen Clark in the five minutes I watched - one that she'd advanced the NZ-USA relationship well, and two, that he was wrong and she was right about going into Iraq.

It would be nice to hear politicians admit that they were wrong occasionally. They tend to be at least 50% of the time.

$500 a week is probably enough to hire a part-time bodyguard. Or to buy a good supply of barbed wire. Or 1,000 rounds of rifle ammo.

Reminds me of a quote that might have been from The Office, but probably wasn't:

there's no I in "team"

No, but there's 4 yous in "you fuck*ng stupid cu*t"

:-)