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Ryan Bridge: Will Labour's election bribe work? · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: It's not quite Briscoe's sale level, but 10% off your
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: student loan, not to be scoffed at, is it? Unless,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: of course, you're not a student, you've never had a
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: student loan, and you don't plan on sitting in a
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: lecture theatre for three years to learn about post-feminist critical
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: race theory or environmental market terrorism. Doesn't that sound like fun?
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: In that case, you don't really care about this policy
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: from Labour, except for what it costs you as a taxpayer.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: You see, the unfortunate thing about democracy... is that we're
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: all taxpayers, aren't we? It'll cost, they reckon, by their
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: own calculations, half a billion dollars next year, almost, totalling
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: almost $ 600 million over five years. It's up front, most
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: of this cost. Now, this is an old trick in
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Labour's playbook. Many of you will remember Helen Clark scoring
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: a third term after doing interest-free student loans. That was
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: back in 2005. But this week, the Nats will probably
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: hit back with their own little sweetener. The books are
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: open tomorrow for everyone to have a little peek under
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: the hood. And listening to the sounds that Nicola Willis
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: was making yesterday, the bank economists were making on Friday,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: growth and surplus should be, albeit Obigalex, should be looking
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: a little better than the last update we got at
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: the budget. And then Nicola Willis will use the numbers
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: to release policy tax cuts. She's dropped hints about this
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: at the Business New Zealand election conference a few weeks ago.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: She's going to try and do something about bracket creep, which,
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: unlike Labour's student loan bribe, is a bribe that almost
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: all Kiwis, taxpayers, will benefit from.