Mortgage Levy gone by lunchtime

The Press Editorial labels Dr Cullen’s suggestion of a mortgage levy as the fastest retreat in recent times, and definitely gone by lunchtime.

They go on to conclude:

If he were serious about getting New Zealanders off borrowing to sink money into unproductive domestic property and on to saving and investing in productive industry – as our dire balance of payments numbers tell us we should do – he would undertake a thorough-going and sophisticated reform of the tax system to make productive investment more attractive.

Cullen has for long been a sure-footed political operator. But the scornful reaction even from those who are nominally his political allies shows, not for the first time recently, that some of his skills may be getting rusty. Is he perhaps, after all his years at the top, becoming a liability?