Bringing the SAS home – a week early

This is almost too funny for words. Labour’s bold new defence policy is:

Labour will withdraw New Zealand’s SAS troops from Afghanistan within 90 days of assuming office

Why is this so funny? Well the SAS are scheduled to return home in March 2012.

The election is on 26 November 2011. 90 days after that is 24 February 2012. So the impact of their policy is to bring them home a week early.

But in reality, it probably isn’t even that. They say within 90 days of assuming office, not of the election. it normally takes at least a week to arrange a coalition, appoint Ministers and be sworn in. As a Labour-led Government this time would involve getting agreement with the Greens, with NZ First and with Mana, its actually possible the SAS would be home before they’re even sworn in 🙂