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I don't know if policy outside of Covid will ever see the light of day.
One would hope, as of next week, when we are in level 2 around the country, maybe we can get around to talking about good tangible ideas that might go some way to helping this country get off it economic knees and start to slowly rebuild.
National, in releasing their small business policy, are bringing back the 90-day trial. This was a policy, and a successful one, that got dismantled by the current government. They would have gone further, and driven by nothing more than union ideology, butchered the whole thing completely. But credit where credit is due, New Zealand First stepped in and saved part of it.
But in simple terms the 90-day trials allowed employers to take on new hires for a period with no great risk, in that if it didn’t work out, they could move them on with no hassle and no penalty.
The unions, pre-National enacting it, cried black and blue about abuse, and the powerless being taken advantage of. What actually happened, and research showed it, is people weren't abused, they were hired.
Because what the policy did in the real world, as opposed to the theoretical world of the unions, was allow employers, especially smaller employers, the life blood of the economy to take a leap of faith, to take the risk, and actually employ people. What these people told us was that the policy made a tangible difference, indeed the difference between hiring and not bothering.
These sort of polices are what we need more of, those are the polices that go beyond the one stop shop of the current plan which is welfare. Subsidies, welfare, free money, whatever form it comes, is no answer long term. We simply don't have the money.
The only way an economy grows is by people doing real work, making real products and services, and earning real money. That money converts to incomes, to spending, and to tax.
This is the scandal of the election. We are not seeing enough real policy that provides enough real incentive to get on with it.
Too many have been hypnotised into believing free borrowed money, a lot of closed shops and businesses, and a social catastrophe of people losing their livelihoods is an excellent response to a health issue. And going forward Grant Robertson and his printed cheque book will suffice.
So, before we hear the receivers at the door, let us hope there is more 90-day trial type material coming our way, that there are those who care about the future of this country beyond locking us down, sending us broke, pretending people working hard, and taking risks isn't actually the way forward.