Mike's Minute: Labour's report card for the week

Ahead of the long weekend let's give the Labour Party a report card for their policy week.

It will be one of the few report cards this week because we actually turned up to work.

So overall a 'C-' for presentation. They had two years to organise this, to make a splash, to grab the headlines and run with them.

Policy one didn’t have any detail so it was just a thought bubble.

Policy two was forgotten about, or sneakily given to a magazine ahead of time, or a combo of both.

And policy three was fine but it was just an extension of an already existing idea and the problem with the existing idea is the existing idea isn't used, or needed.

So a drone-type view of the “themes” is we have a lot of overarching Government control, a Government picking winners on the future fund, a Government telling doctors how much they can charge and some freebies for gaming.

Now that’s left-wing politics and some people like that and that’s fine and that’s democracy. That’s why we have elections.

So a 'B' for the theme.

On specifically the future fund they get a 'C' because at no point can they escape the fact that whatever they give to the fund it won't go to debt repayment and, given we have less than no money, that must be a priority.

And that’s before you get to the bit where the world is awash with money for ideas anyway.

The GP's committee gets a 'D'.

A 'D' for dumb and dunce and fail. Telling already struggling GP's what they can and can't charge is a recipe for frustration, anger and resignation. It's got administrative cluster written all over it.

The gaming subsidies get a 'B-'.

Because it's already running. But here's the clue - gaming is booming. Is it booming because of subsidies? No. The subsides aren't used.

They set aside $160 million but less than half has been applied for. It’s a classic Government-looking-to give-away-money idea. They can't even give it away.

But the truth is, as artificial as it is, Government's do offer tax deals on gaming and film, so you've got to compete. So of the three policies this was their best idea of the week and by quite some margin.

Overall if this is them, if this is the sharp and ready to rock-n-roll alternative to run this country, they need to majorly sharpen up.

Or if you're looking at this week and going "man that Hipkins is one slick operator", well I'll see you at the airport.

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