Written By: - Date published: 4:23 pm, July 24th, 2008 - 37 comments
I just read Gordon Campbell’s latest Scoop column about the omnibus tax bill and quickly followed it with Frog’s piece on the matter and I am not impressed. The first reading of the government’s bill took place last night and within its myriad of dull tax stuff was a hidden barb for the quarter of […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:52 pm, July 24th, 2008 - 87 comments
You know you’re in for a treat when a political party’s ‘policy’ (I still refuse to consider half a dozen bullet points a policy) concerning the rights of New Zealanders at work the place most of us spend a good part of our days nearly avoids any mention of the word ‘rights’. On its surface, […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:53 pm, July 23rd, 2008 - 55 comments
The Employers and Manufacturers Association’s advertising campaign to defend the ability of employers to make workers pay their own Kiwisaver employer contribution while pocketing the taxpayer subsidy is the most hamfisted and transparently cynical piece of PR I’ve seen in some time. It’s outragous that the EMA should claim it’s standing up for workers’ rights […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:33 pm, July 23rd, 2008 - 33 comments
Word around the traps is that National is going to be releasing its industrial relations policy this afternoon. My prediction is the policy will be sold as relatively moderate, but in reality will differ only slightly from their rather extreme 2005 plan. We can be sure that every single change will have the effect of […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:24 am, July 21st, 2008 - 291 comments
Judith Collins, who has made it her mission in life to attack benefits at every turn, has been meeting with Mission Australia, the largest private ‘work-for-the-dole’ scheme provider in Australia. This is a clear indication that, in contrast to the moderate, modern approach Key says he espouses, National will be returning to the failed policy […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:38 am, July 19th, 2008 - 30 comments
We’ve said this before but, seeing as BNZ chief economist Tony Alexander is in the Herald this morning saying ‘the October 1 tax cuts won’t cover inflation’, it’s worth restating: tax cuts are not and can not be the method by which people’s incomes are risen for inflation. Tax cuts cannot be cut year on […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:40 pm, July 18th, 2008 - 46 comments
Unlike some of our counterparts, the Standardistas aren’t into vanity posts. So, in this clip from TVNZ7’s Back Benches on Wednesday, ignore who’s asking the question and watch National’s Chris Tremain try to justify his party’s ACC policy. Reaches for his cliches but they don’t fit the question so he resorts to attacking the question. […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:24 am, July 18th, 2008 - 7 comments
Good piece in the Herald yesterday (and the Dom Post the day before) from PSA national sec Richard Wagstaff critiquing ANZ National chief economist Cameron Bagrie’s woeful report on public sector ‘waste’. Wagstaff takes aim at the underlying assumptions of the report about ‘productive’ versus ‘non-productive’ public sector spending, then proceeds to rip through some […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:23 am, July 18th, 2008 - 13 comments
National’s ACC privatisation policy is another of its one page wonders (this time with three page backgrounder skimming the history of ACC and restating the policy in longer sentences with no more detail). In the policy documents and in the interviews by National and its allies, no evidence has been provided that privatised ACC will […]
Written By: - Date published: 4:00 pm, July 17th, 2008 - 28 comments
John Key tries to reassure us that National’s policy to privatise ACC would keep the scheme’s principles intact. Here’s how he defined those principles on Radio Live: ‘no fault, 24 hour, no fault, blah, blah, blah.” Sorry, but that doesn’t fill me with confidence in our wannabe PM and his policies. [Update: gobsmacked points out […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:07 pm, July 17th, 2008 - 50 comments
The Council of Trade Unions has put out a detailed, devastating critique of each of National’s arguments for privatising ACC. I’ve copied it in full below: National Party: ‘National will: • Investigate opening the Work Account to competition. • Conduct a full stock-take of the various components of the ACC scheme, evaluate progress to full […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:36 am, July 17th, 2008 - 23 comments
National says its ACC policy will provide ‘choice’ on accident compensation, but choice for who? Employers will be able to choose between a variety of competing (mostly private) insurers, but for the likes of you and me we’ll have to take what we’re given and pay the consequences of our employers’ bad choices. We won’t […]
Written By: - Date published: 7:17 am, July 17th, 2008 - 25 comments
The biggest protests during this term of Parliament were against National’s 90 Day Bill when it came up as a private members’ bill. In protests all over the country, over ten thousand workers turned out to oppose having their rights stripped. The Bill was defeated but National has not given up. National has signalled that the […]
Written By: - Date published: 5:22 pm, July 16th, 2008 - 51 comments
National has confirmed it intends to privatise the ACC scheme starting with opening the work account to private competition. This would see private insurers cream off large and low-risk employers with special deals, leaving the taxpayer to shoulder the burden of the rest (which would, in turn, be the basis for privatising of the remainder). […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:27 pm, July 16th, 2008 - 25 comments
This morning on Sunrise, John Key said “wage inflation” is a problem causing inflation and needs to be reduced. Wage inflation is a businessman’s way of saying pay increases. John Key opposes Kiwis getting the pay increases they need to cover the rising cost of living. This fits with his statement that “we would love […]
Written By: - Date published: 4:14 pm, July 15th, 2008 - 139 comments
Why does National want to remove the right of workers to appeal against unjustifiable dismissal in the first 90 days of employment? The reason National gives us is that workers having the right to sue for unjustified dismissal has a chilling effect on small businesses. Supposedly, they are afraid to hire workers because if they […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:14 pm, July 8th, 2008 - 55 comments
On Sunday, Bill English let slip that National still intends to take away the work rights of employees of small businesses for the first 90 days of employment. Now, National’s Shane Ardern has spilled the beans on the Nats’ policy to cut the contributions to hundreds of thousands of Kiwis’ Kiwisaver plans. In the Te […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:37 am, July 8th, 2008 - 8 comments
UPDATE: Thanks to commenter T-Rex for reversing the cartoon to show workers taking a disastrous right turn. Far too much time on your hands brother…
Written By: - Date published: 4:13 pm, July 7th, 2008 - 103 comments
In perhaps the most unsurprising announcement of the year, National has let slip it’s going to maintain its 90 day no rights policy, which basically means your boss can sack you for whatever reason he likes within the first 90 days of your employment. Don’t be fooled by the spin there’s already a provision for […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:06 pm, July 7th, 2008 - 25 comments
National tells us that, if we put the right incentives in place, people will work harder and their incomes will go up. National opposes the 39 cent tax bracket because they argue people would be incentivised to work more and earn more if incomes over $60K were taxed 6 cents in the dollar lower. They […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:10 am, July 7th, 2008 - 36 comments
Ok. Now that the political theatre is done maybe National and its allies would like to engage in proper debate on the freight trucking industry. Here’s some issues for debate: Road user charges are less than 10% of costs and the increase, half what was recommended meaning petrol vehicles are still subsidising truck companies, is […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:51 am, July 5th, 2008 - 122 comments
It is time for the Left to take back the language of freedom. At its heart freedom, power for the ordinary person, is what the Left is about. – Freedom from unemployment, – Freedom from crappy wages that mean you have to work 60 hours a week to make ends meet, – Freedom from having to […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:50 pm, July 4th, 2008 - 32 comments
The MSD’s Incomes Report provides a wealth of information. For instance, here’s how the mean and median household incomes have moved since 1982. Households suffered a massive erosion of income during the rightwing revolution from 1984 to the late 1990s. The leftwing governments since 1999 put that to a stop that. Now, incomes have regained […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:56 am, July 3rd, 2008 - 72 comments
Howcome when capital goes on strike over political issues it’s seen as a legitimate part of democracy, but if workers tried the same thing it would be illegal under the Employment Relations Act? [UPDATE: Seems frog had similar thoughts over here.]
Written By: - Date published: 11:53 am, July 3rd, 2008 - 23 comments
Some excellent journalism by Vernon Small has revealed that Australian insurers expect National to privatise the ACC scheme and they see $200 million profit in it for themselves. National has now been forced to admit its policy is to allow private competitors for workplace and accident insurance, although (as always) details are not provided. Mr […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:18 pm, July 2nd, 2008 - 93 comments
It’s refreshing to see some proper investigative journalism in this morning’s Dominion Post, with a revelation from Vernon Small that while National continues to try and downplay ACC and talk about “no privatisation in the first term,” a report from John Key’s old firm Merrill Lynch suggests National’s privatisation plans are an open secret among […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:44 pm, June 24th, 2008 - 105 comments
Labour, with the support of New Zealand First, has developed a bill based on Darien Fenton’s private members’ bill that will ensure tens of thousands of workers are no longer ripped off by ‘triangular employment’ situations, whereby their effective employer contracts out the actual employment of staff to a labour hire company. It works like […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:58 am, June 24th, 2008 - 21 comments
It’s good to see the PSA broadening the public debate on tax cuts with a UMR poll showing the majority of Kiwis don’t want bigger tax cuts if they come at the expense of public services. To summarise: 71% of New Zealanders would prefer to keep taxes at current levels than have higher user charges […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:45 pm, June 23rd, 2008 - 90 comments
National has released a brochure, laying out all its policies. They take up two A4 pages of double-spaced bullet points. That’s incredibly lightweight. Contrast that with the policy files of another party outside government, the Greens. National has 14 vague policies. The Greens have 51 policy area pages, each containing dozens of actionable policies. There […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:05 pm, June 23rd, 2008 - 72 comments
The cornerstone of National’s ‘New Zealand sucks’ campaign is that Australia is much better (and we have to lower taxes and slash work rights to catch up). Now, the Sunday-Star Times produced a well-researched article on standards of living here and in Australia. A year late, but good to see, nonetheless. The conclusions: Your tax […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:40 pm, June 20th, 2008 - 94 comments
‘Unemployment benefits at record low.’ The number of people receiving the unemployment benefit has fallen to just 17,465. That’s the lowest number since at least 1979. At the same time, Sickness Benefit numbers fell 1,542 (3%) in the last year, DPB numbers are down 12% in the last five years. Overall, benefit numbers have dropped […]