Satire - Don's Diary
For this week's Don's Diary, click here.
May 16 11.30am
Arrived at office to find Richard and Murray slumped over Dom-Post's prediction of tax cuts in Thursday's Budget. A disaster, according to Murray, of Titanic proportions, worse than the Hindenburg, bigger than Jonah's kidney. Looked astonished when I reminded them that we had been calling for tax cuts and should congratulate Cullen on finally getting the message. Began work on a press release to that effect while they helped Judith sort through huge pile of tennis ball insertion complaints.
May 17 2.00pm
No sign of Richard and Murray. Gerry thought they might be in Auckland talking to John. But John was in his office. Must be another John. Wrote to Cullen congratulating him on tax cuts but expressing hope they will not be too big. With Richard and Murray away, questions about the Doone affair dried up. So helped Judith with Benson-Pope tennis ball insertion complaints, interviewing one man with a peculiar spring in his step and an incredible tale to tell.
May 18 11.30am
A note from Michael thanking me for my congratulatory letter on tax cuts and agreeing that significant reductions at this stage would only boost consumption with adverse downsteam effects on the trade balance, inflation, interest rates and the currency. Advised Judith against asking a question based on complaint from one of BP's former pupils. Although not impossible and certainly life-altering, it's unlikely even in the culture of the time that an assault of that nature involving a rugby ball would have gone unnoticed, especially in the middle of an annual inter-school fixture.
May 19 4.00pm
Delivered Budget Speech in normal manner, cleverly disguising my worry that tax cuts are too generous (67¢ a year by 2008!) by criticising them for being too little, too late. Returned to office where Richard and Murray had broken out the champagne. I proposed a toast to the tax cuts which got a huge laugh.
May 21 10.00am
Waited outside dairy for Herald to see what John Armstrong made of the Budget. Ranks it up there in the catalogue of great disasters alongside the Titanic and the Hindenburg although not quite as big as Jonah's kidney. He sees it as a tennis ball stuffed down the gob of opportunity, not as a disaster for the economy but for Labour's election campaign. Call from Murray inserting promise of tax cuts before Christmas in tomorrow's regional conference speech. Richard says I must stop thinking of tax cuts as instruments of fiscal policy and see them in their correct context as election bribes.