Joyce on the KiwiSaver GST stuff-up

Steven Joyce writes:

The suggestion seems to be that the decision to charge GST on KiwiSaver fees slipped into the regular tax bill without the top echelons of government being fully aware of the ramifications of it. And that the failure to mention it in the press release announcing the bill was an unfortunate oversight. …

Unless all the officials involved were incompetent, which is highly unlikely, and the Prime Minister and Finance Minister can’t read, also unlikely, there is no way they didn’t understand that the Inland Revenue were lodging a bill to increase the tax take by $200 million and reduce people’s KiwiSaver balances accordingly.

Joyce detailed the numerous steps at which Ministers are briefed on what is in a bill.

So unless there is a total breakdown of the normal decision-making processes within government, which is highly unlikely, this decision and the underhand way it was announced was premeditated.

They knew what its impact would be, and made a deliberate decision not to include it in the press release, hoping no-one would notice!

Whatever the final cause of the Government’s awry political antennae, it appears very likely the die has been cast and the public have made up their minds about this lot, and ministers increasingly know it.

For the evidence of that, see Grant Robertson’s regular personal attacks on Opposition leader Christopher Luxon. It is likely Robertson realises the public’s perception of his government as out of touch and ineffective is now baked in, and the only chance they have of surviving next year is to make the alternative government look as shop-worn as their crowd.

Expect to see much more attacking of the opposition over the next 12 months. Labour’s strategists may not have been able to work out that adding GST to KiwiSaver this way was political poison, but they are aware that the only way to level the playing field for the next election is to drag the alternative government down and create as much doubt about them as there is about Labour. It’s the 2005 and 2008 playbook all over again. And it won’t be pretty.

Yep they will be looking for their H-Fee!