Government heading down wrong path
The Government seems to have a "we know best" streak in it that will lead to a lot of trouble in the form of unintended consequences in the near to medium future. Rushing through all manner of changes in the first 100 days may get things done but I suspect that some of those things may be done badly.
Halving the school lunches to save a few bob and trying to target them is a new form of insanity. History has shown us that governments of all shapes and sizes over the last 2 or 3 millennium have an outstanding record of incompetence in targeting their largess. Either it ends up in the wrong hands or it creates a plethora of anomalies that drive us all to despair. Not every child needs to be provided with a school lunch but sorting out who does and who doesn't is never going to be an economic exercise.
Annoying the few cops we have left with an insulting pay offer hit a bum note with everybody I have spoken to. They may be annoying when they pull you over for doing 107kph on a deserted country road but when you need them, you need them, and they do a damned important job well, under trying conditions most of the time.
The last government had trouble with the gap between ideas and delivery. This government is heading down the same path. Redundancies in staffing are all very well but when a few of the best pigeons get scattered by the ill thought out changes holes will appear that may very well cost more to fix than you saved in the first place. Kicking the can down the road on school/ hospital buildings are a case in point. You may save $100M here and $200M there but if you are going to have to do the work sometime you would have to be extremely naive or ideologically blind to think that it will be cheaper later on.
We don't need, or I suspect, even want tax cuts at the moment. We just want the books balanced and the work that needs to be done actually done. Most of the estimates used to justify them look as though they were done on the back of a Bellamy's napkin anyway. How long will they hold water in a rapidly changing and volatile world ?
Geoff Orchard, Ohaupo