The Standard Week: July 4 – July 11

Written By: - Date published: 12:46 pm, July 11th, 2008 - 2 comments
Categories: standard week - Tags:

Every time Bill English goes on Agenda, he lets a bit of National policy slip (anyone who thinks it’s an accident probably also thinks Nicky Hager’s some kind of super-hacker). On Sunday, English told us National will be running on a platform of removing your rights at work in the first 90 days of employment – which was met with anger from workers’ rights groups, glee from Labour, ‘thanks but no thanks’ from Business NZ, and a lone ‘yay’ from the Herald. It also became clear that National will remove elements of your employer’s contribution to your Kiwisaver. The Government signalled it will embark on major investment in affordable housing and its Immigration Bill came in for well-deserved criticism. Revelations continued around National’s use of Crosby/Textor to present a nice, appealling facade of John key to the world.

Sacked
…while all you hear from National these days is criticisms about how hard it is for average Kiwis to buy cheese and pay for petrol, the one workplace policy they’ve come out with would make it harder for workers to improve their pay … [more]

More anti-worker policy from the Nats
These are regressive, reactionary policies from National that strike at the heart of our work conditions. No wonder they are trying to keep them as quiet as possible… [more]

Positive moves on housing
Done right, Labour’s housing policy can deliver for the people, the economy, and the environment… [more]

Nats spending your money to build “Brand Key”?
Looks like John Key might be a little less ‘self-made’ and a little more ‘taxpayer-made’ than he’d have us believe…[more]

It’s not OK
Should we be concerned that Mr Key has raised questions over the future of the Families Commission, who are one of the main sponsors of the anti-Family violence campaign?…[more]

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2 comments on “The Standard Week: July 4 – July 11 ”

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  1. Blar 1
    11 July 2008 at 1:43 pm

    Steve, are you aware that National actually announced the 90 day probation policy about a few months ago?

    I can’t understand why people are saying the policy was released on Agenda.

  2. Steve Pierson 2
    11 July 2008 at 1:48 pm

    Blar. The 90 Day Bill was mentioned in that two page policy summary but it had no detail to it, as far as we knew it was still the 2006 Bill – now we know it will apply to businesses employing fewer than 20 people and human rights violations etc will still be grounds for grievance… it’s still a ghost of an outline of a policy but it was an announcement compared to what we knew before.