Mike's Minute: The rules of engagement need to be clearer

What are the rules of engagement in this election campaign? 

Prominence was given by media for a good chunk of yesterday to Kieran McAnulty's crack at Christopher Luxon and how Kiwi families were $6000 worse off under National. 

Now for a start, it isn't National, it’s the Government, and the Government is three parties. 

So McAnulty got his headline. If you don’t read past a headline, you never discover what a crock it all is. Should media give away such easy coverage, should any claim be able to be a headline no matter how absurd? 

$120 a week, Kieran goes on, swallowed up by higher prices. Higher prices for what? 

Food, petrol, power, rates, healthcare, and getting kids to school. 

Let's dissect this: food is not the Government's policy. They don’t regulate food, peripherally, and we have had the debate. They may, or may not have a bunch of settings around market participation, the Commerce Commission may or may not look at mergers and competition generally, but governments do not price food. 

Petrol? Petrol is oil, oil is the war – surely we know that. 

Power? The government does not set the power price. Ironically you could blame Labour for cancelling oil and gas exploration, which put pressure on the spot price, but the government does not control power, nor rates – councils control rates. Councils are a separate thing. Surely we know that too? 

Healthcare? What's that mean? The GP? It makes no sense. Public health is free – it doesn’t carry a cost. Insurance?  

That’s private, the government doesn’t control that either. Getting kids to school? Once again doesn’t make sense – the petrol? Can you blame things twice? Uniforms? The government doesn’t set a price – schools run uniforms. 

It’s a lesson in a couple of things:  

1) How much Labour wants you to believe governments directly control things when they don’t  

2) How easy it is to create a headline with BS 

Does anyone check this stuff? Push back, ask questions, or is this campaign literally a free for all where you make stuff up until you're called out. 

If you are ever called out – which in McAnulty's case was not until now.