Cullen as Chair was a huge mistake
Hamish Rutherford writes:
His role as working group chairman continues, delivering presentations to interest groups and now, attacking claims made by the Government’s opponents.
But the fact is, Cullen is only commenting on the statements made by National. Although he was happy to name examples of stories on the impact of CGT as “silly”, Cullen’s only official response to any commentary on the report has been to attack a claim made by the Opposition leader, with a response which is also questionable.
On Monday evening, at 8.11pm, Cullen, who served nine terms as a Labour MP, issued a statement knocking back a claim by the National Party four days earlier. …
Cullen is acting as a de facto Labour MP, not as a Working Group Chair.
While he is a man of ability, it was a huge mistake for Labour to appoint him as TWG Chair. Many NZers still despise him as the smarmy Finance Minister who hated rich pricks.
The TWG is seen as all about Cullen, rather than an expert group of tax professionals.
I guess Labour appointed him Chair to make sure they got the right outcome, but they would have been better to appoint someone who is not a former partisan, or in this case a current partisan.