Mike Hosking: Is the Government trying to buy a third term?

OPINION

By the end of this week, there will be an astonishing number of New Zealanders who will be financially better off.

As of April 1, the Government is handing out yet more money in their seemingly never-ending desire to buy their way to a third term.

A lot of people contact me to ask, how, given all this country faces at the moment, is it possible that Labour still maintains the level of support it does, how is it that National isn’t streets ahead?

There are a couple of answers.

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Dan Andrews in Victoria last year won a third term.

He locked his state down more than any other Premier, he runs the place in a dictatorial fashion, he is off this week to China to do deals on his massively over-budget infrastructure projects, he is taking no media. His majority was reduced but he was never in danger of losing.

Another theory, one that I favour, is that the polls aren’t actually that accurate.

In the New South Wales election this past weekend, the opposition Labour party romped to victory, defying the polls that had it as a tight race.

To be fair Labour were favoured to win, but not by much and most likely to need independent help. The swings they saw were never captured in any polling.

The theory is the rot had set in for the incumbents, people were over it, they had made up their minds and come election day they were going to have their voice heard.

Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews was recently re-elected to a third term. Photo / Darrian Traynor

I believe the same has happened here. In other words, read all the polls you want ... come October 14, with a recession, crime on every corner, the astonishing sense of malaise that grips the country, and all the various other messes from health care to the “Māorification” of everything that moves, New Zealanders will vote for change.

But what may well be keeping the Government in the game is the extraordinary amount of money that will land in pockets and bank accounts this week.

As of April 1, an awful lot of people get a pay rise.

The minimum wage is going up ... again.

It’s gone up 20 per cent in barely over two years. It goes up by inflation, a perk not enjoyed by all of us.

Superannuation rises, and significantly, the childcare subsidy is up, working for families goes up, student support rises.

By the time you add up not just the amount of money we are dealing with but the number of people we are dealing with, you are up at about $1.5 million.

Now, the emotive part of the argument is the fact we are in a cost of living crisis, a crisis almost entirely engineered by the Government through a spending programme not seen since the Muldoon years, ably assisted by the Reserve Bank which printed off so much money and handed it to the banks they now have no idea how to get the ensuing inflation back under control so are in the midst of a mad scramble to increase interest rates to a point where the economy falls over and people start losing their jobs.

While that’s going on, the cost of everything has gone through the roof. We start squealing and the government, ever keen to a) spend money they don’t have, and b) get re-elected, is only too happy to scratch our fiscal itch.

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Here is the key to it all, when you become beholden to someone, especially financially, you are loath to take the risk of cutting them off.

That’s why the previous National government, although calling Working for Families communism by stealth, didn’t actually stop it, they knew the power of cash.

Heaven forbid we allow people to keep their money in the first place thus saving us the waste of washing it through the public service.

But that’s the trick isn’t it? By washing it through the public service you get to expand the public service, and you get the government in people’s lives and you’ve got them cornered.

We should look at the numbers and be embarrassed: 220,000 on the minimum wage or thereabouts; 880,000 on super; more than half of all families with kids on subsidised childcare; 350,000 families getting the family tax credit; tens of thousands of students getting boosted allowances.

Where would so many be without the Government taking our money off us and giving it back the way it sees fit? And that might just be part of the reason why the polls are as close as they are.