Arrogant? Dismissive? Confused? Some people, especially on Facebook, are seeing the stance taken by the Policy & Resources Committee over the ‘sell’ of its tax reform package, going through the States this week, in various ways.
It has raised the issue of whether deputies should be taking note of social media pressure on inflammatory matters, where there are few more so than GST. Deputy Steve Falla appeared to claim at a poorly-attended public meeting that opposition was overblown if you took social media perceptions too seriously, and seemed to advocate direct contact with elected representatives.
That has led to a tsunami of emails – more than 700 claimed by some – and some deputies apparently not knowing if, or how, to respond.
The demand to any sort of pressure is that the deputy adopts a supportive position, with the ever-present threat of the loss of a vote, or possibly worse, if that’s not forthcoming. There’s no finer point to it. And GST is particularly challenging, in that a case can be made that it’s right for public spending and sharing the burden more fairly, and also that it’s very, very wrong. It can never be successfully sold, nor defended.
At the time of writing, however, it looks as though P&R might have the numbers, and the tax package will be (narrowly) approved. And quite what the response will be to that, deputies can only guess – or find out in three years’ time.
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