Money for tax cuts for rich, none for doctors’ pay

Written By: - Date published: 12:22 pm, June 21st, 2010 - 9 comments
Categories: health, tax, wages - Tags: ,

Health Minister Tony Ryall, like his Education counterpart Anne Tolley, is facing a big fight over wages. The health budget is chock-full of cuts as it is and Ryall says there simply isn’t any money to give doctors pay rises as they and other workers face nearly 6% inflation next year. The government can find billions for tax cuts for the rich but not to pay doctors and teachers. Priorities.

Before the last election, there was a junior doctors’ pay dispute. Asked what he would do, John Key promised to increase doctors’ wages through tax cuts (and cutting admin staff). Well, we’ve had the tax cuts and, as The Standard’s writers were noting at the time, they simply are no substitute for wage increases. If doctors and teachers are unable to win pay rises this year their real wages will fall.

Let’s face it. The government has no plan to close the wage gap with Australia. Their only priority is tax cuts for the wealthy few. And, so, we’ll keep on losing valuable workers overseas.

9 comments on “Money for tax cuts for rich, none for doctors’ pay ”

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  1. burt 1
    21 June 2010 at 12:52 pm

    Some of us were also concerned about Dr’s salaries when Labour was in power.

    • Bright Red 1.1
      21 June 2010 at 1:04 pm

      Including the Standard’s writers by the looks of it.

      Glad to see you’ll be supporting the doctors and teachers to get the pay they deserve, burt.

    • Craig Glen Eden 1.2
      21 June 2010 at 4:20 pm

      really Burt concerned about wages for Doctors aye so how did you voice that concern? Lots of lets increase public servants wages rallies at National Party conferences I suppose.

      Spam word REDUCTIONS oh its tooo much.

  2. Draco T Bastard 2
    21 June 2010 at 1:17 pm

    Their only priority is tax cuts for the wealthy few.

    Well, it’s not their only priority – they also want to lower wages so that they and their rich mates can make more profit out of everyone else’s hard work.

  3. ianmac 3
    21 June 2010 at 1:27 pm

    I still don’t understand why cutting taxes is good for providing Health, Education, Security. There will simply be less money for those things.

  4. comedy 4
    21 June 2010 at 3:25 pm

    Increase the tax on Drs so we can increase their wages ?

    • Bright Red 4.1
      21 June 2010 at 3:28 pm

      yup. because most wealthy people aren’t doctors and the very rich aren’t doctors. So it’s not simply a money go round.

    • felix 4.2
      21 June 2010 at 4:07 pm

      Don’t worry hs, it wouldn’t affect pretend doctors.

  5. Bunji 5
    21 June 2010 at 4:57 pm

    I loved Ryall’s line of reasoning this morning that the gap to Australian medical salaries was too large, and we couldn’t close the gap until we caught up with Australia.

    So we can’t close the gap until we close the gap? We can’t increase salaries until salaries are the same level?

    I’ll give National a small clue as to how we can close the wage gap – by increasing wages…

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