Labour’s ChatGPT policy

Marc Daalder at Newsroom writes:

One has to wonder whether the Labour Party has replaced all of its policy staff with the reckons of a ChatGPT bot that has been fed a steady diet of Talbot Mills polling numbers and focus group transcripts.

That’s one way to explain the unambitious tax policy released on Sunday: To strip GST from fresh and frozen fruit and vegetables, saving the lowest-income households a little more than $2 a week – and to boost family tax credits for low- and middle-income workers with children.

Yep $2 a week for the lowest-income and some of the WFF changes such as the abatement threshold don’t come in until April 2026!

Bad policies parties believe in are understandable. Policy that clashes with a party’s values can be excused if it works.

This is neither. This isn’t a policy Labour believes in, it’s a policy Labour believes will win. The party has made policy by focus group rather than by principle or evidence base.

The tax policy also doesn’t help answer the key question that still looms over Hipkins: We’ve seen what he doesn’t believe in (wealth taxes, hate speech laws, the public sector media merger) but what does he want? Sunday’s announcement leaves the impression the Prime Minister supports whatever gets him another term of Parliament.

A fair summary.