As the campaign enters its final weekend, Jacinda Ardern and Grant Robertson have attempted to lance the boil, pledging Labour won’t introduce new tax changes before 2021. Now the attacks will switch from tax to leadership, writes Toby Manhire

It was a “captain’s call” to push open the door to significant changes in the tax system within a first Labour term, said new leader Jacinda Ardern just over three weeks ago. “It is different leadership, different decisions,” she told the New Zealand Herald Job Interview panel. “Andrew [Little] made a call that he would go back to the electorate. I made a call that if I was in government and presented with a tax working group paper that suggested these are the things you need to do to be able to tackle the housing crisis and inequality in your tax system, to then sit on that for one, maybe two years without doing anything didn’t feel right to me.”

It was a bold statement: a stake in the ground. It could only have been done from a position of enormous strength. But it was also an odd position to take. It was a red rag to a Steven Joyce bull. As chewed over on the Gone By Lunchtime podcast yesterday, the time it takes to assemble a working group, for the group to do their working, for the recommendations to be weighed and for the IRD to get them into shape for introduction would surely take us just about up to 2020 anyway.

And to turn to the most authoritative online source, here is the Urban Dictionary definition of Captain’s Call, noting the Australian antecedent:

If not quite a full-blown clusterfuck, over the course of the campaign that captain’s call has turned into a thorn in Labour’s side. The National campaign has in recent days become an all-out, sometimes histrionic assault on Labour’s tax plans. After the fiscal-hole belly-flop, the “Let’s Tax This” mantra seemed to be having real effect. And this morning the party leadership essentially admitted as much. It gritted its teeth and ripped the thorn out, in the full knowledge that it would bring a thousand headlines of U-turn, flip-flop and volte-face.

The important bit began in the eighth paragraph of Labour’s statement, with a tacit acknowledgement of error: “Labour will not shy away from the hard issues such as fixing the housing crisis and we are determined to do what is right, but we also know we must take New Zealanders with us as we do that.”

The promise is for public involvement in the Tax Working Group, parliamentary oversight, and, most critically of all, no changes before a second term.

“We know it is important to get this right, so we will balance the need for certainty and urgency by ensuring that any potential changes will not come into effect until the 2021 tax year. This gives multiple opportunities for public input, and a general election before any new tax would come into effect. To avoid any doubt, no one will be affected by any tax changes arising from the outcomes of the Working Group until 2021. There will be no new taxes or levies introduced in our first term of government beyond those we have already announced.”

Fronting up to the press this morning, finance spokesperson Grant Robertson – the one senior colleague Ardern had said she’d consulted on her captain’s call – was asked if the decision was made in the knowledge it could be the difference between winning and losing. They were faced with “a desperate series of lies and spin” from the National Party, he said. We can take that as a yes. Certainly it suggests that the party’s internal polling – and we await with interest tonight’s Colmar/TVNZ poll – has been trending the same way as the other night’s Newshub result.

The trade-off for Labour was the hit it will take by backing down on the most prominent act of decisive leadership from Ardern – already National’s pollster is characterising the act as “panic” – versus the ability to regain grip on the direction of their own campaign. Ardern will hope to sell this is a setback rather than a catastrophe, as a sign of humility rather than misstep. There will be a lot of “we’ve listened to New Zealanders”.

Labour will have to ride out at least 24 hours before it can hope to get back into gear. But going into the last weekend of the campaign, it had to be done now, or not at all. And while the National campaign machine won’t be in any hurry to drop the Let’s Tax This concern trolling – Joyce was out of the blocks within minutes with “The public simply can’t trust Labour on tax” – watch as the glare of its spotlight pans towards questions of leadership.

Politics podcast: To listen to Wednesday’s episode of Gone By Lunchtime, either download (right click to save) or stream the podcast using the player below, or subscribe via iTunes, or here on Stitcher (RSS feed).

This week ‘The Beerhive’ launched, a podcast which sits comfortably between the not-unrelated worlds of between beer and politics. Host Shane Cowlishaw explains the pod to Duncan Greive.

Wellington has become essentially the unquestioned home of craft beer in New Zealand, helped by its weather, its geography and sensibility. The nature of their jobs means politicians and political reporters also end up spending considerable time, uh, appreciating the form. Journalist Shane Cowlishaw, formerly of the Dominion Post, now of Newsroom, has spent more time assessing it than most. He started blogging about beer while at Fairfax, and lately took a break from the fierce heat of this election to debut a podcast named ‘The Beerhive’, co-hosted with Michael Forbes. It’s recorded in a pub, and features conversations with politicians, journalists and brewers about politics, journalism and beer. He spoke to me what prompted him to add another job to the already brutal intensity of this campaign, how things are going at Newsroom and which politicians he most likes to drink with.

How’d you get into craft beer?

The first time I had a non-mainstream beer was probably while living in Vancouver in 2007. But when I returned to New Zealand I became a student, then a poor journalist, so it was back to the cheap dozens for me. It wasn’t until I moved to Wellington in 2010 that I began to try new beers at places like Hashigo Zake, The Malthouse etc and the rest is history. It led to homebrewing, then blogging on Stuff, then many long nights drinking with brewers for “research”.

Which brewers do you most enjoy and why?

Brewers are usually colourful characters so it’s a good time hanging out. Kerry Gray from Choice Bros has become a good friend, I got to know him through home brewing and watching him go from humble beginnings to opening his own brewery/bar called HUSK in town has been cool. Mike Neilson from Panhead is also someone I respect, having built his business into one of the top breweries in the country within just three years before selling it to Lion. If you’re talking hoppy beers you can’t go past Joe Wood at Liberty, while I’ve always really liked Emerson’s beers. Richard Emerson is the man.

Wellington and craft beer seem deeply intertwined – does that extend to the political class in your experience?

Hmmm, do you mean are all politicians alcoholics? I couldn’t possibly comment. I think there’s a few things that have led to Wellington’s beer scene becoming so big, one is the collaborative atmosphere of the city and its geography. It’s pretty simple for a brewer to walk a few blocks and talk to another for advice, borrow ingredients etc. Wellingtonians famously love eating out and drinking, but the city also has the highest median income in the country I think (which is helped by Government being based here) so they have cash to spend on beer.

Push comes to shove, which politicians do you most enjoy drinking with?

There’s plenty I’ve never had a beer with, but Defence Minister Mark Mitchell is always a good laugh. ACT’s David Seymour is one of the youngest in Parliament so you often see him at the Beehive’s bar, while I can report Gareth Hughes’ home-brew is decidedly terrible. The other week Jacinda Ardern showed me her whisky cabinet, which was impressive (no sampling though, it was 10am). I’m hoping I can share a tipple with her at some point but she doesn’t drink beer. Maybe I can convince her to have a depth-charger.

Where did the idea of the Beerhive spring from?

We started it in 2013 as a blog to follow our journey as we began home brewing. We were both working for the Dominion Post at the time so it first launched on the paper’s website, before it was merged into Stuff. It slowly evolved into a general blog about beer and was great fun, but when I left Fairfax earlier this year it had kind of run its course and the idea of a podcast came up. It’s given us the ability to expand out from strictly a blog for beer geeks, using our skills and contacts as journalists to interview a wide range of guests. Beer will still be the central focus though, it’s recorded at Wellington pubs the Fork n’ Brewer and The Malthouse, so it’s hard not to be. As for the name, I’m going to take credit for that genius moment (I don’t have many).

What can we expect from the first season?

We’re aiming for about eight episodes for the first season, to see how things go. With the election next week, we’ll be putting out two politically-themed episodes featuring some local Wellington politicians and some political journalists. From there we’ll have some episodes that are very beer focused, and some with other interesting, familiar faces. If we make it to season two we’ve got some great ideas for guests, but we’re always open to ideas!

How are things going at Newsroom? And what’s the biggest thing you’ve learned over the first six months or so?

Things at Newsroom are great. I spent about nine years at Fairfax, a big machine, so it has been quite the change shifting to a small start-up with only 10 or so people. That’s come with its own challenges (mainly things like who’s buying the stationary) but overall it’s been fantastic. We’ve had a great reception from the public to what we’re trying to do, helped along with some big Mel Reid investigations such as the Todd Barclay recording scandal. It’s been great being able to work closely with legendary journalists like Mel and also people like Bernard Hickey, Mark Jennings and Tim Murphy. You learn a lot!

This election: we thought 2014 was brutal, but this is somehow more intense. How are you handling it – and what’s been the wildest moment for you so far?

How have I been handling it? With a lot of 10% Russian Imperial Stouts (and whisky). Seriously, this election has been bonkers. It’s my first time covering an election full-time, I’ve covered previous ones from the periphery but even seasoned political journalists say this one has been unrelenting. I think part of it is the fast pace of the media industry these days, but you can’t escape the fact that since the Barclay story there seems to have been an unrelenting number of other huge stories and political meltdowns. There’s still 10 days to go as well, I’d suggest the wildest moment is still to come…

Read The Beerhive, or subscribe to Shane’s podcast on iTunes or Stitcher