Posts Tagged ‘wage gap’

Polls and elections

Written By: - Date published: 9:14 am, May 19th, 2012 - 21 comments

Another poll to add to current mix. Not a big shift, but in the right direction, and getting the right kinds of headline.  And here’s another headline that isn’t going to help the Nats – the wage gap with Australia is growing at the rate of $1 a month.

The reverse Midas touch: the gap with Australia

Written By: - Date published: 9:37 am, April 27th, 2012 - 19 comments

Remember when we elected that guy with all the financial experience because he would be able to guide us through the tough time better and close the gap with Australia? Oops.

Winning the race to the bottom

Written By: - Date published: 11:38 am, April 19th, 2012 - 42 comments

You don’t get fat off the crumbs from someone else’s table and you don’t get rich by being someone else’s butler. So, why the Nats are so happy that Australia is sending a few call centre and cigarette jobs here, where wages are lower, I don’t know. We’ll be wealthier if we produce more wealth, more stuff of real value. Not if our competitive advantage is low wages and insecure jobs.

Come back, we were just measuring GDP wrong!

Written By: - Date published: 12:34 pm, March 28th, 2012 - 10 comments

100 jobs a day were lost in January and 1000 people a week left New Zealand for Australia last year but it turns out it was all a mistake! David Farrar has discovered that we measure GDP slightly differently from Australia and if we use their measure then the purchasing power parity-adjusted difference in GDP per capita is close to zero. Hooray!

Time to take back what’s ours

Written By: - Date published: 6:16 am, October 18th, 2011 - 117 comments

update: Labour’s policy is here. Looks good. $15 minimum wage. Mondayisation of holidays. Industry standards to stop bad employers undercutting ones that pay fair wages. Good for workers. Good for good bosses. It’s a lot like the system the Aussies have. You know, the people whose wages we’re meant to be catching up with. The Tories are whinging. Like they do whenever anyone fights for higher wages

Q+A interview – Key still lying

Written By: - Date published: 7:20 am, August 15th, 2011 - 61 comments

A better than usual interview of John Key by Guyon Espiner on Sundays Q+A.  On the plus side Espiner was raising some serious issues. On the minus he let Key get away with his usual lies and evasions.

Better off with National?

Written By: - Date published: 2:26 pm, April 13th, 2011 - 27 comments

National is making most New Zealand households worse off – 5.3% worse off after 2 years, and it’ll be even worse once the 3rd year’s data is out. As the wage gap with Australia grows, this government is failing its “fundamental purpose”.

Footnote: legal aid.

Minimum wage review

Written By: - Date published: 2:08 pm, January 18th, 2011 - 243 comments

When the government, eventually, gets back from its month-long holiday, it needs to review the minimum wage. To keep up with inflation, the increase needs to be at least 50 cents an hour to $13.25. If we want to catch Australia, we should copy them and lift it to $15.

Doing nothin’: The gap with Australia

Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, November 4th, 2010 - 24 comments

September Quarter unemployment numbers are out today. It will be an indictment on National if there is not a good sized drop. So how is this government doing on its flagship policy of closing the gap with Australia by 2025? No Right Turn has been trying to find out what work they’re doing to achieve that goal. Answer: Nothing.

Unions Succeed where National Fails

Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, August 31st, 2010 - 13 comments

National’s big election promise in 2008 was to close the wage gap with Australia. They’re failing, as our wages fall behind theirs under National’s economic mismanagement and employer-centric policies.
But there are some who are doing better than others in the pay stakes:
Union members.

Massive series of blasts to close gap with Australia

Written By: - Date published: 1:08 pm, August 19th, 2010 - 5 comments

Prime Minister John Key today outlined a plan to close the gap with Australia using his skills as a money trader and a stockpile of ex-Soviet nukes.

Take him up on the offer, Phil

Written By: - Date published: 7:52 am, August 19th, 2010 - 28 comments

John Key said yesterday: “the gap with Australia is definitely closing … If [Phil Goff] wants to pop up for a coffee I will take him through the numbers, and I can take him through a few others.” I say go for it, Phil. I’m dying to see what numbers Key is talking about. Because the reality is that we are falling behind Australia on every measure, while Key just smiles and waves.

Spin and bullshit

Written By: - Date published: 11:39 am, August 5th, 2010 - 13 comments

Labour has rightly challenged National on its failure to make any progress on its core promise to “close the gap” with Australia. And rather than responding with action, National has responded with spin and bullshit. And that is very telling indeed.

Labour 12% ahead in the polls!

Written By: - Date published: 10:14 am, August 2nd, 2010 - 32 comments

I’m very pleased to report that Labour has leapt to a dramatic 12% lead in the opinion polls over National! It’s looking good for 2011! Bravo Phil Goff and the rest of the Labour team.

Wage gap $40 a week wider under Nats

Written By: - Date published: 11:39 am, July 28th, 2010 - 95 comments

Closing the wage gap with Australia was one of National’s key promises in the leadup to the 2008 election, but the Dom Post reports today that the wage gap has grown by another $40 a week under National’s watch.

Can we stop pretending now that National ever really had a plan to close the wage gap?

Wage gap is the John Key credibility gap

Written By: - Date published: 10:34 am, March 13th, 2010 - 46 comments

There’s a nickname for John Key that’s picking up currency from both Left and Right around the blogosphere: ‘smile and wave’. The one thing Key can be depended on is to turn up grinning in some cheesy photo op. All his promises fall by the wayside. Meanwhile, 276,000 Kiwis are jobless, the wage gap with Australia keeps widening, and so does Key’s credibility gap.

Aussie wages outstripping NZ

Written By: - Date published: 7:40 am, March 9th, 2010 - 19 comments

In NZ, the average FTE wage rose 2.86% after inflation – $891 to $934 – over the past year. In Aussie, it was 3.6% above inflation – $1159 to $1226. When will John Key admit that he sold us a lie? When will the media call on him to resign if no progress is made on the one substantial promise of a ‘brighter future’ at he made?

Brash report tipped to be toxic

Written By: - Date published: 11:19 am, November 26th, 2009 - 35 comments

Jenni McManus reports in The Independent [offline]: The first report from the 2025 Taskforce is due on Monday and the word is its recommendations are likely to be toxic to the Government. Taskforce chairman Don Brash this week refused to reveal what it contains but The Independent understands its recommendations are light years away from […]

Fran pumping Brash for productivity taskforce

Written By: - Date published: 11:34 am, July 8th, 2009 - 18 comments

A few weeks ago the NZPA reported that the Government had agreed to establish a taskforce to “work on ways to close the productivity gap between Australia and New Zealand”. The taskforce would be selected by ACT leader Rodney Hide and would be announced within the month. The story then sank without a trace. So […]

National bleats about wages, still has no solutions

Written By: - Date published: 1:35 pm, September 5th, 2008 - 18 comments

The National Party are once again trying to make political capital over the Trans-Tasman wage gap, even though they created it in the first place and have no policy to fix it. Like I’ve pointed out a dozen times before: 1. Yes, we have a wage gap with Australia and it needs to close. 2. […]

Lucky Aussies, they kept their work rights

Written By: - Date published: 2:12 pm, July 31st, 2008 - 62 comments

Some of our friends on the Right have been putting themselves through strange mental contortions over the recent series of posts we’ve had on the impact of National and the Left on wages. To recap: we’ve shown that National let the minimum wage stagnate while inflation ate its buying power, the Labour-led Governments have increased it, […]

Does anyone care about the gender wage gap?

Written By: - Date published: 3:22 pm, July 29th, 2008 - 38 comments

I recently caught a story on the radio about the gender wage gap of new graduates – and in the failed search to locate it came across some other related stories. As we head into an election campaign with political parties offering up their solutions for the future I had to ask myself – does anyone […]

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