A press release is not a policy!

Oliver Hartwich writes:

The announcement caused a bit of confusion in our office because there is more than one way in which you could read the policy.

The first reading is small. If the saving really is $25 a week, then $65 million stretches to about 54,000 people, or one New Zealander in a hundred. A modest scheme for a lucky few.

The second reading is enormous. Labour says 1.3 million people ride public transport each year, and if they all saved as promised, the bill would not be $65 million but well over a billion. On that reading, the $65 million is not a budget at all. It is a down payment.

The third reading sits somewhere between the two, and it turns on figures Labour never gave us. How many drivers will switch to the bus, and how many riders already spend enough to gain anything? Nobody outside Labour can say.

Three readers, three answers. We could not agree on what the policy was, let alone whether it was any good.

The reason is simple. Labour gave a headline and kept the workings. No model, no spreadsheet, no table of who saves what and where. In fact, not even a problem definition.

Without those, you cannot argue with the policy. You can only guess at it.

Will 1% of NZers benefit from this or will 25% of NZers benefit from it. We don’t know.

Commentators asked Labour for policy. But Labour only gave us a press release with a dollar sign on it.

Parties that want our votes owe us their workings, not just their answers.

Yep, it was a press release, not a serious policy.