Beehive Diaries: National’s Nicola Willis and Labour’s secret wealth tax plan; Luxon’s Barbie photo ops

OPINION

Sweet vindication for Nicola ‘Cassandra’ Willis

National’s Nicola Willis was particularly pleased this week after Budget documents revealed Labour had done months of secret work on a wealth tax as part of a “tax switch” to pay for a tax-free income threshold which would have delivered about $1050 a year to workers.

The plan had been scotched in early April and Prime Minister Chris Hipkins had ruled out a cyclone levy, a capital gains tax or a wealth tax in the Budget. At the time, many wondered why he’d bothered to specifically rule out the latter two, since nobody had expected them anyway. The only one who had alleged they were on the table was Willis, who claimed to have secret intel on it.

National Finance spokesperson Nicola Willis and Finance Minister Grant Robertson. Photo / Greg Bowker

Willis discovered what life must have felt like for Cassandra, the Trojan priestess in Greek mythology who was doomed to deliver true prophesies which nobody believed.

Nobody had believed Willis, assuming she was simply scaremongering. Vindication was sweet.

Chris of the Week:

Hipkins’ best photo op of the last week was supposed to be a meeting with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Lithuania. Alas, Hipkins was last in a long line of leaders and US President Joe Biden – who is just a tad more useful for Ukraine’s needs than Hipkins - hogged all his time. That meant the most he got was two sentences in a corridor in passing. Still got the snap though.

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins speaks with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky at the Nato summit in Vilnius. Photo / Prime Minister's Office

Luxon’s social media consisted of many photos from his many public meetings …. and this wee pitch for the youth vote – a photo of Luxon in a Barbie booth, self-captioned “Bald Ken”.

National Party leader Christopher Luxon as "Bald Ken" in a Barbie photo booth. Photo / Supplied

Which at least shows he doesn’t take himself too seriously all the time.

On the policy front, Luxon announced more new policy while Hipkins announced non-policy: in the form of the tax reforms Labour won’t make.

On the polls front, two polls delivered bad news for Labour and Hipkins; both the Taxpayers’ Union-Curia poll and the Talbot Mills poll have Labour down to 31 per cent.

It’s now just three months until the election – and the sole aim of the game at this point is doing more than your rival to get votes.

Since Luxon was actually in the country where the voters are and out meeting them, was announcing policy and had a better week in the polls, Luxon is Chris of the Week.

Hipkins has now returned to the country and back into the contest. He will launch his campaign slogan and first billboard on Sunday, as well as moves on law and order and tax in the coming days.

Awks moment for Nicola Willis and Greg O’Connor

Walking into a room to discover everybody is talking about you is never comfortable – so there was a bit of an awkward moment for Nicola Willis and Labour’s Greg O’Connor, the rival candidates in the Ōhāriu electorate. The pair walked into Newstalk ZB’s Wellington studio this week just as a news item about them was being aired. Former Ōhāriu MP Peter Dunne was giving his reckons on the seat – saying while Greg O’Connor had a good majority, he reckoned Willis stood a good chance. “It’s all on in Ōhāriu.”

Beehive Diaries is told O’Connor noted that Dunne clearly liked Willis, and she replied: “I think I’ve grown on him.”