National’s tax policy: Nicola Willis brings her winner’s swagger to election race - Heather du Plessis-Allan

OPINION

If a pre-election tax policy is a job application for the Finance Minister’s job, then Nicola Willis aced the first round of interviews.

She nailed all the most important aspects of a good tax bait. Her promised tax relief is big enough to make voters want them, it’s aimed at the hard-working parents many would agree deserve it most and it can (apparently) be paid for without borrowing more.

She played the politics perfectly. She made sure rich Kiwis don’t get much, which means Labour can’t use the “tax cuts for millionaires” attack line anymore. She pinged foreigners and offshore gambling outfits to pay for it - people none of us really care about. And she pulled together a whole bunch of what really are subsidies and called them tax relief so it sounds better.

She brought her winner’s swagger. She was confident, across the details and sassy straight back at her critics.

And she is quite clearly now being treated as the preferred candidate for the job. The clearest sign of that is how seriously her plan is being taken by commentators. That doesn’t always happen. Last election Paul Goldsmith and his $4b hole were ridiculed and dismissed. That is fatal to a campaign.

Willis’ plan, by contrast, is being given the level of attention and scrutiny usually reserved for an announcement by the incumbent government. Commentators are effectively treating this plan like it is an announcement by the likely government (or at least the biggest party in that government).

And Willis is also being cut the kind of slack only a preferred candidate gets. If she wasn’t the frontrunner, the heroic assumptions in this plan would be ripped apart like Goldsmith’s plan was.

There is no way National will get the $740m a year it’s banking on from the 15 per cent tax slap on foreigners who buy houses here. To rake in that much money, foreigners would have to buy 2000 houses worth more than $2m each, every year.

There are only 50,000 houses worth that much in the whole country. If foreigners buy at the rate they need to, they’ll own all the houses worth more than $2m in just 25 years. That’s not going to happen.

In 2017, the year before foreigners were banned from buying houses, they bought only 3400 houses altogether (and that was across all price bands). Under National, the only price band they’ll be allowed to buy in makes up just 3per cent of the market. If they bought 3400 when they had 100 per cent access, how can they buy 2000 when they have 3 per cent access?

It’s also unlikely National will be able to force overseas gambling operators to fork out $180m a year in tax.

It’s ludicrous, yet multiple commentators this week brushed over it as not that big a deal.

That’s the kind of treatment the preferred candidate gets. The front runners’ errors are ignored as long as the plan is mostly believable. The runner-up doesn’t get that privilege. Just ask Labour. Their tax policy got so badly mauled that they tried to stop talking about taking GST off fruit and vegetables within 48 hours of announcing it.

A lot rested on Willis nailing her tax policy this week. It was the first big test of National’s economic credibility at a time when voters know the Government can’t really afford to give them the tax cuts they want and need.

Labour will throw everything at trying to find holes in these numbers over the next few weeks and then convincing the public to care. They’ve got a huge task.

Willis and the National Party, on the other hand, just made it so much more likely they will end up landing their dream jobs.

* Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive, Newstalk ZB, 4pm-7pm, weekdays.