COMMENT:
Imagine when even Facebook and the International Monetary Fund turns against you. That's what happened to poor Simon last week. Just a few days after he dog whistled out that "Everyday New Zealanders" didn't care about the Christchurch Call and that it was a "talkfest" that achieved nothing, Facebook went ahead and announced that it was making some policy changes, largely because of the Christchurch Call.
This didn't stop him from going on RNZ and contorting himself in knots by both praising Facebook's decision in relation to the Christchurch Call while saying the call would still achieve nothing unless the US Government came on board.
But that's ok. He had good old neoliberal criticisms of Labour's inability to handle the economy to fall back on. Except then our GDP figures came out and we were steady-as-she goes with growth, exceeding a lot of other western countries, or as Simon might call them, "Everyday" countries. And then the International Monetary Fund said our economy was going pretty good. Hell it even praised the Wellbeing Budget.
Labour being a bit rubbish at the economy is National's bread and butter criticism. Everyday New Zealanders seem to have it in-baked into our political perceptions that left-of-centre parties are not good with the economy, and right-of-centre parties are. This is all kinds of dumb for many reasons. Firstly, history does not support it. And secondly and more importantly, the way in which we define being "good at the economy" is stupid and anti-people. It focuses on metrics like GDP growth, and IMF and credit ratings by suspicious corporations rather than giving everyone a fair and equitable chance at living their best lives.