The public deserves politicians who mean what they say and say what they mean, writes 1News political reporter Felix Desmarais.
Analysis: Forget rolling. First Labour PM Michael Joseph Savage was practically pirouetting in his grave this afternoon.
Wake the father of the New Zealand welfare state from his eternal slumber and no doubt, in modern parlance, he'd say: "You've got to be kidding me."
Maybe he'd even say something about a load of bull's proverbials.
This afternoon, following a caucus meeting that re-confirmed his leadership of the Labour Party, Chris Hipkins practically burst out of the gates to announce capital gains and wealth taxes (and everything else policy-wise) was back on the table.
In July he announced "under a government I lead there will be no wealth or capital gains tax after the election".
Politics junkies at home watching the live stream would have spat out their lukewarm red bush tea.
A-ha though, dear reader, Hipkins said today, with a twinkle in his eye, he'd said after the election.
"It says after the election and we lost the election," he retorted to reporters quoting his own words back to him.
Sorry, what?
Bro, mate, cobber. That's not the hole in one you think it is. And even if it was, it shows a lack of good faith in the New Zealand public.
I'll humour it for a second. Hipkins is saying he didn't rule out a wealth and or capital gains tax under his leadership because he added the modifier phrase "after the election".
He said repeatedly Labour lost the election and therefore – he inferred – that statement was now null and void.
OK, then: if he'd said "under a government I lead there will be no wealth or capital gains tax after Labour is re-elected to government for a third term" that would work.
But "after the election" doesn't change anything. It is November 7. It is "after the election". Whether Labour won or lost was never specified.
That humouring over, it's not the point. To regular people, what Hipkins said was under his leadership, there would be no capital gains tax or wealth tax. "End of story," he said.
Language was employed to strongly communicate that was it. End of story.
But apparently now Labour has lost the election, it is not the end of the story for new taxes.
This semantic squirming serves precisely no one, including Hipkins and his knee-capped party.
If you oppose those taxes, it tells you Labour appearing to rule them out meant next to nothing. Who's to say there wasn't some other linguistic wriggle room to allow Labour to introduce those taxes if re-elected?
It plays directly into National and ACT's attack lines that Labour can't be trusted on tax. For the right, that zinger line from Nicola Willis - "Labour loves tax like a shark loves blood" - will be ringing in their ears and bedding in. Perhaps they voted Labour in 2020. Why would they ever again now? How many times have you seen people call the party "Liebour" in comments sections? It's not a lie – it's a shifting of the goal post – but to that punter, it's the same thing.
If you support those taxes, it tells you Labour will happily chuck those socialist ideas out the window rather than make a principled call on (what you would perceive to be) the "right" thing. It tells the left it will sell them out for the centre any day of the week.
For everyone else, it says politicians don't say what they mean nor mean what they say. Or at least will happily find a loophole to wriggle out of their position if need be.
It also says a government criticised repeatedly for under-delivering is more than happy to revive its progressive, change-focused agenda as soon as it is stripped of the power to do so. Hipkins even said so today: "The Labour Party stands for progress". Here's another modifier suggestion: It stands for "progress" in Opposition.
Because this is not about whether those taxes are right or wrong. It's about whether we can trust the words of our politicians. And as cynical as we may get, it's what the public deserves and should demand of their leaders.
Hipkins is not the first or last to do this. But it's scarcely been so blatant. So transparent.
Maybe that's what they meant by most open and transparent government ever.
Reporters asked Hipkins why, with this seeming back-pedal on tax, he was not willing to admit he had been wrong on his captain's call.
Those questions, while fair, misunderstand a crucial thing: it was never about right and wrong. It was about what was politically expedient.
And that goes to the heart of it: no matter the stripe of the politician, we choose leaders based on our assessment of their ability to make the right call, not the one that serves them politically.
So what Chris Hipkins did today was say the quiet part out loud: ha ha, gotcha.
Christopher Luxon, who has a tendency to make language a meaninglessness mincemeat, corporate buzzwords hung together like hammocks on a Hawaiian beach, would do well to heed the cautionary tale here.
Hipkins said today the party needs to go away, debrief, and consider what lost them the election. He said it wasn't one issue that did so - not even tax.
But perhaps there was one overarching theme that buried Labour's third term six feet under alongside Micky Savage: squandered trust.
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