Shearer no big spender as Labour’s future direction begins to unfold
LABOUR leader David Shearer has started the long process of repositioning the party, ditching a key plank of its 2011 election campaign and signalling that more changes are on the way.
Speaking at a breakfast meeting in Wellington yesterday, Mr Shearer signalled that the promise to give everyone $10 a week in the hand, through a $5000 tax-free band, would go.
‘‘I would want to ask whether a tax-free zone that gives everyone the same-sized tax cut is going to be much of a priority,’’ he said.
Tax breaks for research and development and a capital-gains tax – a key part of Labour’s tax and economic policy – look set to stay.
He said a capital-gains tax was ‘‘pro-growth’’ because it helped switch investment from sectors such as housing into productive areas that needed capital.
But Labour is looking at scrapping other big spending promises, such as the removal of GST on fresh fruit and vegetables and an extension of a Working for Families ‘‘in-work’’ entitlement to beneficiaries, which the party saw as clashing with its message of fiscal prudence.
‘‘Any government I lead is going to be thrifty,’’ Mr Shearer said.
He also hinted at other policy aims, such as thousands more companies exporting, and promised to ‘‘value teachers’’ without giving specifics.
After the speech, he said could include extra pay.
Mr Shearer has come under pressure for leaving his ‘‘state of the nation’’ speech so late in the year.
But he said he had needed ‘‘clear air’’ to take up the party reins, reshuffle his lineup and reorganise the party.
‘‘The direction of where we are going is different to where we were going before. So there is a distinct feeling of a new direction amongst the caucus and MPS.’’
He was planning a series of speeches, including one setting out his view of New Zealand’s in-
that ternational standing and its place in the world.
‘‘What I’m trying to do is plot in the first year the main direction we are going in and start doing some policy work around those directions so in the second year we are starting to get draft policies up.’’
By the beginning of 2014, ‘‘unlike what we did last year’’, he wanted a clearer idea of where the party was heading so policies could be solidly costed in time for the election.
Labour has criticised cuts to the public sector, but Mr Shearer said Labour was not planning to put more money into the state sector. ‘‘More spending ... [has] to come off the back of a pickup in growth in the economy.
‘‘From day one [we want to] make sure New Zealand embarks in a direction that’s smarter, cleaner, greener, and [with] a more highly skilled future.’’