John Armstrong: Few gains for either side from tax debate

David Cunliffe. File photo / Martin Sykes

See no capital gains tax. Hear no capital gains tax. Speak no capital gains tax.

Labour MPs wore the inscrutable expression of Buddhist monks yesterday. They smiled a lot at the mention of Parliament's worst-kept secret, but there was no confirmation.

The closest anyone came was finance spokesman David Cunliffe, who declared it was now "game on" as regards November's election.

But with the battlelines between National and Labour now neon-lit, the two major parties spent an hour-long debate throwing a succession of tired cliches at one another, each landing well short.

Out they poured. Tax and spend; borrow and hope; slash and burn. Over-used slogans morphed into one another in such a way that it was difficult to remember who said what.

National MP Craig Foss's eerie conjuring of "Labour. Tax. Labour. Spend" was the exception - but sounded like a party incantation used to ward off the evil spirits so obviously possessing Labour.

The lacklustre debate was in part down to Labour's refusal to say anything ahead of next Thursday.

It was also in part down to National's determination to persuade the public that such a tax would be the end of civilisation as we know it.

Thus did Finance Minister Bill English rubbish Labour's "walking backwards into the future on the crutch of a new tax".

Cunliffe argued that New Zealand was going backwards because National did not have a plan.

Everyone is going backwards, it seems, but at least Labour had a plan and - even if Cunliffe couldn't say what it was - it would "change the course of the country".

By day's end, however, the question was less whether Labour would meet that promise and more whether - in the face of National's onslaught - it would hold its nerve and stay mum until next Thursday's policy launch.