Herald: Key establishing a reputation as someone who gets things done

A pretty positive editorial from the NZ Herald on John Key. They are right that it is very hard to actually achieve things in Opposition, yet Key is doing this. Some extracts:

National’s new leader, John Key, is fast establishing a reputation as someone who gets things done, which is never easy in Opposition. In his first major speech he challenged businesses to help provide food and sports equipment to schoolchildren in deprived neighbourhoods. While the Prime Minister and others were chipping at his incursion on Labour’s territory, Mr Key was busy with firms responding to his call. Tasti Foods donated 100,000 snack bars to the KidsCan organisation. James Crisp Ltd donated 100,000 boxes of raisins.

Mr Key is promoting the idea that we should not look to the Government for everything in social welfare, that the Government is not necessarily the best judge of what is needed and that charity is a good thing. If that last suggestion sounds obvious, it is a matter of contention by the traditional Left. Charity, they believe, is random, unreliable, demeaning for the recipient and prone to value judgments about who is deserving.

Selective tax incentives for any purpose have been out of favour for 20 years because they invite companies to gear their activities for tax advantages rather than market returns. But philanthropy is an activity outside market options. It is an investment in the social environment of business, rather like a tax payment. There seems a certain logic, therefore, in reducing a donating company’s taxation by a proportion of the amount it has voluntarily given to the community.

The difficulty is in defining a charity for tax purposes. All sorts of recreational and co-operative enterprises are likely to register as charities if it gives their benefactors a tax break. But then the virtue of independent charity is that many more people than a Cabinet contains can pick a deserving cause.