Saturday Morning With Jack Tame

Call me a sucker. Last Sunday morning, the petrol gauge in my car dropped to one bar and I pulled up at Mobil and filled up with gas. It cost $150 to fill my 2012 Toyota hatchback. In twenty years of driving, it was the most money I’d ever spent filling my car. Of course, it felt painful. But I figured I didn’t have much of a choice. The war in Ukraine looked set to continue and even if I waited, I knew I’d have to fill up sooner or later. The next day Labour cut petrol excise tax by 25c a litre. Cutting the price of petrol for three months and halving the cost of public transport will cost almost $400m. The policy had almost no scrutiny or oversight. There was no regulatory impact assessment. The Ministry of Transport and Treasury have kindly agreed to a ‘post-implementation assessment.’ They’ll tell us how it went, after it’s all over. Brilliant. But although the Government has framed the tax cut as an urgent and nimble piece of leadership, we should describe it for what it really is: cynical and reactionar