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The right incentives?

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 […]

Bill to protect workers from labour-hire vultures

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 […]

The grass isn’t greener across the ditch

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 […]

Act now to protect workers’ wages

Written By: - Date published: 11:40 am, June 19th, 2008 - 55 comments

              Times are going to get harder for workers in the next few years. Unemployment is set to rise to 4.5-6% (still well under 1990s levels). The wages of those who keep their jobs won’t rise as fast. At the same time, prices are rising faster, particularly petrol. What […]

Slippery John’s “after-tax incomes” line

Written By: - Date published: 10:29 am, June 18th, 2008 - 33 comments

You’ll have noticed that Key only ever talks about increasing ‘after-tax incomes’. Even when he’s asked about wages for government employees, like doctors, he responds that National would increase their after-tax incomes with tax cuts, not by increasing their wages. But anybody can see that cutting taxes is only a short-term way to slightly increase […]

The wage gap and the Nats’ crediblity gap

Written By: - Date published: 5:01 pm, June 12th, 2008 - 32 comments

Remember when National was all about the wage gap, whinging about it every day? Heard them talk about it lately? The last mention we can find is three weeks ago. Has the issue suddenly gone away? No, there is still a wage gap and solutions to it require serious debate. But National wasn’t talking about […]

National’s cruel hoax

Written By: - Date published: 10:10 am, May 23rd, 2008 - 52 comments

Well the budget is out and across the country the public are looking at their tax cuts and asking “is that it?” and this is at a time that economists are very nervous about the inflationary impact of such a large package of cuts and anything bigger means cutting services or significantly increasing borrowing. The […]

Junk pay

Written By: - Date published: 2:55 pm, May 15th, 2008 - 70 comments

The last couple of episodes of Fair Go have rightly taken aim at a distribution company – Reachmedia – that rips off young kids by paying them peanuts. Reachmedia (half owned by NZ Post) has been paying young kids sweatshop wages to distribute pamphlets for the likes of the Warehouse, Farmers, Michael Hill Jeweller, and Progressive Enterprises (the […]

Kiwisaver breaks half a million

Written By: - Date published: 4:37 pm, March 25th, 2008 - 17 comments

Congratulations to Kiwisaver’s 500,000th member, baby Remy Van Cruysen, whose parents, Jules and Megan, signed him up today. By the time Remy is an adult he will have a nest-egg worth $49,000 in today’s money. Kiwisaver has been enormously popular. People have signed up at twice the expected rate 500,000 have joined in less than eight months, […]

Whatever, Roger

Written By: - Date published: 5:38 pm, March 20th, 2008 - 74 comments

NZers’ wallets will bulge under Act, says Roger Douglas. Sure they will Roger – with the bills from our kids’ user-pays schools, our privatised hospital fees, water charges, private accident insurance premiums and, if your party gets half a chance, the privatised oxygen from the air we breathe. Because we all know who gets rich […]

For the record

Written By: - Date published: 2:58 pm, February 28th, 2008 - 103 comments

Like most of his policy positions John Key’s story on his comment “we would love to see wages drop” just keeps on changing. First he was “misrepresented”, then his comment was “lighthearted”, and now he’s claiming he never said it. Which is it John? In an interview today with Mickey Havoc, Key now denies ever […]

Jones to Key: say it to our faces

Written By: - Date published: 3:25 pm, February 25th, 2008 - 23 comments

Far North Labour MP Shane Jones laid down the gauntlet to Key over the ‘we would love to see wages drop‘ scandal. Jones reminds Key that: “all it takes to ruin a Teflon pan is one scratch” and in a second press release lays out his challenge: ‘there’s only one way for Mr Key to […]