Capital Spending

I don't know that that was worth waiting months for, eh? And obviously talking about Labour's cheaper public transport policy. It's a policy that's so predictable that we actually did predict it four hours before it was released yesterday. And it was predictable because it's not a new idea from Labour. It's an idea that they took from 2022, dusted it off and tried running out again with the tiniest of tweaks. Being predictable is a problem because it's not interesting. It means this policy probably won't get cut through. It's not the kind of policy that's going to create the kind of buzz that they need after months of policy drought. But what is obviously, and you can tell after that interview, a much bigger problem, it's their maths. There is no way that this is going to cost $65 million a year and save 1.3 million public transport users an average of $1,200 a year. $1,200 times 1.3 million users is $1.6 billion, not $65 million. Now they're either fibbing about the cost or they're fibbing about the benefit, and maybe it's even a case of both. What is possibly even worse than that is that this policy suggests that Labour may not have any ideas other than spending money. It's what they do every single time there is an election or a crisis. Cost of living crisis post-COVID, hand out $350. Child poverty crisis, give mums of newborns $70 a week for a few weeks. Want to win an election? Make a year of university free. That stuff doesn't grow the economy. It doesn't actually fix the fundamental problems we have, like high inflation or low wages. It just throws money at the symptom, like which is stretched budgets and then as a result, we have a grown a growing debt pile. It's not running a country doing this. Spending money is the easiest thing in the world to do. You and I could run the place tomorrow if that was the extent of the thinking that was required. I'm disappointed that this is what Labour has made us all wait months and months for. They have, though, got another five months, and they need to do more than this with future policy announcements announcements if they want a proper chance at the election.