Aus Wars, The Empire Taxes Back & The Return of the Parker

National starts its fight back as Bill English goes to boot camp, Jacinda Ardern negotiates her first international stoush and Grant Robertson opens the door to a Capital Gains Tax.

By Tim Watkin

It's been an in-between week in New Zealand politics - between the fall of both Andrew Little and Metiria Turei and before the final pre-election fiscal update and the rise of the 'big policies'. But there's still been plenty going on. And a bit of argy-bargy.

Next Wednesday, what's known as the PREFU is released by Treasury. That's the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update, to give it its proper name. Labour won't reveal its big policy - widely picked to involve education - until it knows the state of the nation's books. While they'll have it all ready to go, they need to be seen to be waiting so as to look like responsible managers of the economy. Equally, National has kept its campaign launch back until 27 August - four days after the PREFU - when we expect to see its big policy bid for a fourth term.

But has everyone been in hibernation while we wait? Heck no. Some have even come out of hiding.

While we've seen a lot of reheated policy announced - such as Labour again promising driving lessons for high school students and National re-announcing the $100m for mental health it first announced in Budget 2017 - battle lines have been drawn.

In this week's Caucus podcast, Guyon Espiner says National has kept its powder dry for a week or so after Ardern's rise to the leadership, but has now started to roll out attacks against Labour. First amongst those, #letstaxthis and the well-worn line that Labour is the party of new taxes.

Labour opened the door to that attack, when finance spokesman Grant Robertson revealed that a capital gains tax was back on the table in Labour's first term. In 2015, Andrew Little as leader ruled out significant tax reform in a first term, promising to seek a mandate at the next election. Robertson, then Ardern, said if Labour's tax review suggested a capital gains tax (which politics observers assume it will), they no longer feel the need to seek that mandate before implementing it.

Cue Steven Joyce calling Labour "dodgy on tax" and cries that Ardern will introduce new taxes on water, Auckland transport and now property. Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy even starred in a campaign video as the worried farmer having to find money for water royalties on top of all his other many bills…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details