John Key’s plan to cut your pay

IrishBill
16 years ago
Categories: john key, national, tax, workers' rights
Tags: john key, national, tax, workers' rights

“We would love to see wages drop”. You would think that given the simmering debate about our wage gap with Australia at the moment that would be the last thing you’d expect to hear from the leader of the National Party. Especially when he’d gone on record in the national media just a week ago claiming under pressure that his party “will raise wages“.

But that’s exactly what John Key told the Kerikeri District Business Association in late December last year.

“We would love to see wages drop”

Think about what that means for a second.

For most people their wage is the only income they have to pay their mortgages or rent, to feed and clothe themselves and their kids and to make sure they can have some kind of a decent life – all the things most Kiwis need and want.

And John wants them to have less.

We’ve talked about the wage issue time and time again on this blog and how the National Party has no answers on how to raise wages. They seem only to want to talk about tax cuts, and I guess this explains why.

That Key would say this to an audience of employers and within two months try to tell the New Zealand public the complete opposite is a disgraceful act of dishonesty, and it shows his real attitude to working New Zealanders.

Disdain.

I’m starting to understand how Key can claim his tax cuts wouldn’t be inflationary – his plan is to take them out of our wages.

UPDATE: Around the blogs Jordan Carter, No Right Turn, SproutBean and Kiwiblogblog have all weighed in. Scoop has press releases from Labour and the EPMU

UPDATE 2: The Council of Trade Unions has entered the fray, challenging Key to come clean on wages.