Jack Tame: Petrol prices – Government cares more about polls than principles
Call me a sucker.
Last Sunday morning, the petrol gauge in my car dropped to one bar and I pulled up at Mobil and filled up with gas. It cost $150 to fill my 2012 Toyota hatchback. In 20 years of driving, it was the most money I’d ever spent filling my car.
Of course, it felt painful. But I figured I didn’t have much of a choice. The war in Ukraine looked set to continue and even if I waited, I knew I’d have to fill up sooner or later.
The next day, Labour cut petrol excise tax by 25c a litre.
Cutting the price of petrol for three months and halving the cost of public transport will cost almost $400m. The policy had almost no scrutiny or oversight. There was no regulatory impact assessment. The Ministry of Transport and Treasury have kindly agreed to a “post-implementation assessment”. They’ll tell us how it went, after it’s all over. Brilliant.
But although the Government has framed the tax cut as an urgent and nimble piece of leadership, we should describe it for what it really is: cynical and reactionary.
I love Jack Tame.
I think he’s one of the best public broadcasters second only to John Campbell.
I think his interview with Police Commissioner Coster saved NZ by talking down the Wellington Middle Class Marxists from screaming for the military to bash the dirty filthy smelly lumpenproletariat Nazi’s off Parliament’s lawns.
As far as I’m concerned, when Jack speaks, we should all listen.
But his latest column calling Labour’s 25cent cut to petrol prices as cynical and reactionary ends up saying more about Jack than Labour.
An incredibly well paid public broadcaster who has the money to pay for expensive petrol wants to lash the Government as cynical and reactionary for helping the poorest amongst us continue to exist is a rich white first world criticism ain’t it?
Jack has the luxury of criticising the Government because he’s paid an enormous amount from the taxpayer, but those living on breadlines welcome cheaper public transport and cheaper petrol prices.
Jack sounds more concerned by a Government that wants to help poor people immediately rather than the convoluted fuckfest that is raising welfare only to have most of that raise clawed back by MSD.
Oh to have as much money as Jack has to able to criticise as freely as he has.
All Jack showed here was his own privilege.
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The best way to help poor people immediately would be to crimilalise the ownership of more than a single residential dwelling.
Jack is wrong.
If he’d bothered to do his research he would have found that the oil price has been going up ever since Biden was elected. He instituted a series of moves that guaranteed there would be a shortage of oil, and in this he fell into line with many of his European counterparts. (Ukraine is but a blip on the chart that will come & go.)
We have entered an era of artificial energy scarcity, created by climate zealots. Even while most of the decision makers fly around in executive jets. So remember when you empty your wallet at the pump, how you’re actually saving the planet. LOL
yep, that Tucker Carlson guy, always winning the argument with his unprovable facts, I mean, who needs inconveniences like truth to win an argument?
It was a bit of both, things often are, but maybe he said, “ polls rather than principles” with an eye on his own polls. Nice shirt.
There’s a real “look at me” smugness in our Jack, beautifully captured in the pic don’t you think Annie.
David George – Oh God. Do I have to analyse everybody ? On a Bloody Sunday ? I just saw that little shit Bill English in the supermarket, and he’s strutting more – fatter legs – cockier than the shabby little character who cringed around in dirty jeans after he exited the corridors of power having demonised every young male in New Zealand, stuffed their employment prospects, helped widen the gap between the haves and the have-nots, helped flood the country with exploitable immigrants, tried to privatise the health system, wanted unwanted babies to be born to quietly desperate women, pretended not to hear when Key shouted for other people’s kids to be sent to war in his suck-up to the US of A.
There is still hope for Jack, I hope; he’s brainier than Bill, better taste in clothes, he’s been around, but the Mona Lisa does enigmatic better…
He is probably reasonably intelligent but enigmatic he is not.
I’ve never heard anything interesting or original from him, a lot like the PM in that respect. Indicates a certain lack of imagination and authenticity perhaps.
David George – Enigmatic was how I thought the lad was trying to look; I don’t listen to him or see him, so I don’t know, but if he really thought that the cut in petrol prices was ‘unprincipled’ then I don’t think he’s all that smart – he looked to me like yet another victim player -he filled his petrol tank then they cut the price, diddums, ain’t life tough. Nice shirt though.
Cutting yet subtle Gentle Annie. David George perhaps is not an art afficianado? He would have been aware of the trope? of Mona Lisa looking enigmatic- there have been many ideas about what was on her mind while she was being painted!
Or, in Jack’s case, trying to look enigmatic because there’s nothing there to begin with?
David George Stop being mean. I recall Jack Tame reporting from the USA very well for a young guy – not sycophantic and impressionable like Key – or some of the tv girls they ‘ve sent to London – he’s not an idiot- give him time…
(How old’s Hosking anyway ? )
Not quite correct, Martyn. Labour made two opportunistic moves in reaction to a couple of unfavourable political polls, one good, one not so good.
The good one is ordering the halving of public transport fares on buses and trains (but not the Waiheke ferry that gives Winston’s Wealthy SuperGold pensioners the free ride to their island vineyard lunches). We must push for this to become entirely free fares for everyone, permanently.
The not-so-good one was lowering the petrol excise. An astute kneejerk reaction by the Government, but no substitute for broadly easing the cost of living for the poorer half of New Zealand. The way to do this is to immediately introduce a meaningfully large UBI, or universal basic income, for every adult. If that is too much of a headscratcher, the alternative is to make the first $30,000 of income tax-free, and cover the fiscal cost of that by lowering the starting points for the 33% and 39% tax brackets. As the tax change, unlike a UBI, would do nothing for the precariat with little or no income to be taxed, it would need to be accompanied by significant increase in all social welfare payments.
Either of these moves would require the introduction of an annual tax on all land, added to existing rates bills.
A UBI and land tax would permanently help the poorer half of New Zealanders. Fiddling with petrol excise can only ever be temporary, and in the long term solves nothing.
Are UBI and land taxes going to fly any time soon?
The immediate need is full employment. Currently, unemployment is 3.2% which Grant and Carmel consider Full Employment. There are 95,000 kiwis out of work living in poverty. Another 10% of the work force are under utilised and not getting paid a full whack. And no one would have a problem with the cost of living if New Zealand was a high wage economy.
Why does this government distract itself from hardcore economic issues with bike lanes, pronouns and water ownership changes? The last time we had full employment was when Keith Holyoake could count the unemployed on one hand.
There’s a vast gap in understanding of what it’s like to be among the poor, – here in NZ at this time. The same blanked out space in understanding is preventing otherwise well-meaning people in the media and in govt from grasping the significance of removing the gst from fruit and veggies. “It won’t make much difference”, they say. It would make a massive difference, but they cannot comprehend this. The ‘Marie Antoinette syndrome’ is widespread, and Jack Tame is not immune to it.
It reeked of privilege and yet it’s objective was lost on me. Where the hell was he going complaining the government hadn’t put the tax cut plan and public transport subsidy through the MoT bureaucracy? They did the smart thing and bypassed it. It’s THE best thing Labour has done since being elected.
The huge excise tax cut, that encompassed both several Labour and National imposed rises and bus fare halving was exactly the right thing to do at exactly the right time. I’ve never seen National do that, it’s always a calculated jack up of tax cuts for core Nat supporters.
And that it instantly deflated Luxon’s rich mans tax cuts argument was a welcome bonus.
I get the feel Jack was pissed Labour went so off script. They were meant to be mired in months of indecision and controversy of how out of touch were, while the economy tanked.
And is Jack really so naive that he never noticed that politicians are cynical?
Strongly agree, XRay, I really hope we see more of this kind of decisive action!
Bureaucracy and the media need to be cut right through at times – it’s the ONLY way to achieve anything significant in a timely manner.
Hey Jack! Can I say I just lerv that shirt. And the pose. It’s making me wonder whether or not I should take you seriously from here on in. But of course I will – probably because I’m not a total cunt (or even a prick).
Have you considered taking places with Kamahl?
Must be around time. Too late for Jesus Christ. Surely there’s not going to be a surfeit of a battle of the egos in this space, going forward. Ryan Bridge, Jonas Cambullus, Jakus Tamious, Kamahlus Santamarious, Charlottle Belusius, plus the old standards trying to remain relevant – most of whom lobby to to be heard on the various ‘the Panels’
Fuck! Soot me please!
Good point. I think it also speaks to a wider malaise. The middle class are bored of Labour now and so must find things to criticize them for no matter how petty and trivial it might be. I”d put Tame and Johnson in the same basket on this one. They change in polling numbers may also reflects this.
‘The middle class are bored of Labour now ‘ please provide evidence of this.
He is one of the hosts of Newstalk ZB https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/saturday-morning-with-jack-tame/
and at times fills in for Hosking.
’nuff said.
So, are you ever going to admit that Tame is just another tory apologist, who happens to be more skillful than most of the others? That’s been my impression from the first time I watched him (on your recommendation)… I personally would rate Gordon Campbell as streets ahead of Tame when it comes to real journalism… But Gordon won’t ever get a prime time slot on the colonial channels… For the obvious reasons..
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