Key apologises for canning the tax cuts . . [updated]

Colin Espiner blogs on a debate/meeting last night on the economy, organised by his newspaper The Press. "1000 people turned up to hear what John Key had to say about the recession, and how to fix it," says Colin setting the scene [hat tip DPF].

The night was interesting for several reasons. It was good to hear the Prime Minister explain what he planned to do about the recession in words that didn’t have to be fitted into a seven-second television soundbite. Or in a dry speech to a chamber of commerce. Or in the heat of battle in Parliament.
And it reminded me that the public is interested in weighty issues and able to absorb them in relatively big chunks. They don’t need stuff dumbed down, and they do care about more than just day-to-day issues that obviously still concern them.

This was obviously a rare audience indeed. Personally, what I found particularly interesting was this concession:

Key apologised for canning the tax cuts, though he said they would be back: “I believe in the power of tax cuts,” Key said, almost evangelically.

D'you think perhaps our four days at Fieldays inviting folk to head across the corridor and ask the Nats about the broken tax-cut promise might have had some effect?

UPDATE: Good to see young Adolf at No Minister getting the message on govt spending. He's got a good short list of low-hanging spending fruit a responsible government should at least contemplate cutting.