Mike's Minute: Shane Jones can help the Govt shift up a gear

Shane Jones is fast becoming my favourite politician. 

And he might have summed up the Government's issues with one on of his increasingly famous quips. 

"The Ruth Richardson bare austerity approach is not delivering the economic growth we need." 

He is right, isn't he? Classic liberal politics, trimming and cutting, is not the massive bomb we need under us. 

As Chris Bishop yesterday was offering more detail on RUC rates and a move away from petrol taxes, all of which is fine, Shane and his mate Winston were wandering around Marsden Point and talking of making it a special economic zone. 

It'd have tax treatment and incentives to get people to invest and do things. Marsden has got land and a port, it's close to shipping lanes, etc. 

Ireland has made these things famous. They cut a deal on rates, or tax, bring 'em in, stoke 'em up and watch the growth explode. 

Image might be a problem. Shane and Winston both come from, well, Marsden, so it’s a bit nepotistic. But the idea is sound. 

Shane has also this week announced a massive upheaval of fishing, the biggest in decades. So it’s the big stuff that we may need because the regular size stuff hasn’t provided the heft we hoped for. 

Yes, yes, yes, they inherited a mess, we get that, but the results are what count. 

As ACT changed the laws around garden sheds and Nicola talks about supermarkets, it might just be ideas beyond our normal comprehension are what are actually called for. 

The irony of the Jones' idea is it's not part of the coalition deal. I could ask, why not? 

Is the Ruth Richardson line an acceptance that what they thought would work, hasn’t? 

Another irony – I'm not sure how Shane and Winston can wander around Marsden blue-skying their way out of recession, when it's them that’s holding up the foreigners from buying a house after they have invested tens of millions into the country. 

But credit where credit is due, Jones seems to have taken on the mantle of the arse kicker. He is where a lot of us are at. 

This is not a bad Government, far from it. 

It's perhaps just a timid Government. And with October 26 and a ballot box getting closer, maybe we need to shift it up a gear. 

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