ACT leader Rodney Hide has featured in the “Interview the Leaders” series on left-wing blog The Standard. It’s a fairly useless interview in terms of substance and is indeed so short that I strongly suspect Hide responded via his Blackberry. However, Hide did respond with some more detail on what exactly constitutes ACT’s “Smart Green” policy and we now know that it will include the end of the current Emissions Trading Scheme (i.e. the “cap and trade” model).
ACT has always been a resolute supporter of a single, unified rate of GST, with the explanation that anything different would lead to that (cliched) “bureaucratic nightmare”. Indeed, Sir Roger Douglas was the very archichtect of the single rate of GST which was introduced in New Zealand in 1986 – at first at 10%, but within a few years raised to the 12.5% level we have today. ACT can keep this position – but employ a slight election-year gimmick along the way.What to do? Here’s a 5 step plan: 1. Call a press conference led by Heather Roy (the “caring”...
I was alerted by one of my parliamentary sources to a minor controversy about an ACT leaflet, specifically, whether it was in breach of the Electoral Finance Act (EFA) 2007. According to a report by Audrey Young in the New Zealand Herald last week: The commission agreed that the Act booklet Not Your Typical Party was an election advertisement but is not sure it was “published” when it was distributed to journalists at the Act Party conference. It is seeking legal advice. If it decides that distribution to journalists is publication, then it should have had proper authorisation from the...