Having given over the Budget Policy Statement to announcing the Great Superannuation Fund (described by the Herald as ‘breathtaking’), the Minister has announced that there won’t after all be anything much about it in the Budget although "with a bit of luck" he’ll be able to say more about it later in the year.
Upton-on-line is unaware of any previous instance of multi-billion dollar spending plans being airily discussed in such a vacuum. He keeps asking himself what he did wrong, as a minister over the last nine years, to attract so much attention to himself over sums as tiny as David Bale’s salary at the Lotteries Commission. Do big number cock-ups have an anaesthetising effect on investigative journalism?
Equally extraordinary was Dr Cullen’s thoughtful offer to anaesthetise Bill English by inviting him into his parlour for a secret briefing on his super fund plans. As the air of mystery surrounding the fund deepens, Dr Cullen sounds more and more like the mad scientist in a James Bond movie. Who knows whether Mr English would ever re-emerge from behind the laboratory door if he accepted the invitation?
The sharp issue is this: if there’s one policy issue that you can’t cook up in secret and impose unilaterally it’s retirement income policy. Labour and National have been there, done that and paid the price. Secret briefings and a failure to disclose any official advice in support of the proposal seems a strange way to proceed
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