Douglas gets dirty on Key [updated]

The headline is “Sir Roger gets his act together.” The first question might to which might be, “What took him so long?”

This National-led government, to which Roger Douglas and Rodney Hide lend their support and their votes, has as a stated goal “to catch Australia by 2025.”  How’s that project going, you ask? Look at the tale of the tape:

At this rate we’ll be lucky to catch Tasmania.

So, as Douglas says this morning, if John Key is looking to catch Australia, it’s by a process that looks something like this:

PS: This, by the way, is an example of what ACT should have been doing all along: not giving John Boy’s government the blank cheque of their support, but pointing out this govt’s failure to do anything like what needs to be done. 

Nothing else but proselytising for their ideas is going to expand ACT’s withering market share with voters--and nothing would make John Boy’s ministers take them more seriously than support being offered only on a case-by-case basis, with their vote made conditional upon whether or not measures being voted on moved toward freedom and prosperity rather than away from it.

But that’s a horse that has long bolted.

UPDATE:  Lindsay Mitchell comments,

The fact remains that National KEPT the Labour policies it railed against in opposition in full knowledge that they are bad for New Zealand's economic future.
ACT however would have been far more potent staying out of government and building support for the kind of reform National will not undertake.
Why vote ACT when Roger spouts good policy but supports a govt that does not?
What a mess.