Heather du Plessis-Allan: Labour haven't denied plans to drop GST on fruit and vegetables

It’s hard to believe it’s possible, but Labour’s week just got even worse- because their tax policy just got leaked.

National's Nicola Willis says she’s got a source who told her Labour is planning to announce it’ll take the GST off fresh fruit and veges, which immediately got headlines because her sources have proved pretty solid.

Remember, she got the tip-off that Labour was working on a wealth tax-tax switch, and it turned out they were.

Don Brash: Dropping GST on food would be crazy

A couple of months back I wrote a column on New Zealand’s high and, at that time, accelerating rate of inflation. I concluded that column with the following comment:

There has to be some risk that, faced with growing public concern about inflation and the impact of the rising interest rates which the Reserve Bank is using to get on top of inflation, the Government will reach for a dopey policy like reducing GST to produce a one-off reduction in the inflation rate. That would do nothing to reduce the underlying rate of inflation – and could well accelerate it if Government failed to offset the loss of tax revenue by increasing tax rates somewhere else.