What would National do?: Emigration

Written By: - Date published: 11:58 am, April 22nd, 2008 - 18 comments
Categories: election 2008, im/migration, national, workers' rights - Tags: , , ,

Simon Power has hit on the fact that Stats New Zealand produces migration figures every month, and that means every month he gets to report the number of New Zealanders heading for Australia as if a) the number is unprecedented, which it is not b) it’s all the Government’s fault, which it’s not. Not that National ever lets the facts ever get in the way of their ‘New Zealand sucks’ campaign.

Given how much political mileage they’re geting from this issue, it’s only fair to task: what would National do to ease emigration to Australia?

  • Would they invest in better public services? No. John Key says National “will grow spending at a lower rate (below inflation?)”
  • Would they increase wages? No, John Key says he “would love to see wages drop“, and every, every, time he talks about incomes he is very careful to say ‘after-tax incomes’ because he doesn’t support employers having to pay their workers more.
  • Would they cut taxes? Yes but not necessarily by more, and certainly not by much more than Labour. At any rate, cutting tax cannot close the wage gap, even 0% tax won’t close the gap and any realistic tax cut will only make a small dent in it.

This is really a typical National attack strategy. They snipe and snipe and snipe but have no solution of their own, none at all. If anything, a National government would encourage emigration through increasing the wage gap by weakening employment law, running higher unemployment, and not raising the minimum wage.

18 comments on “What would National do?: Emigration ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. infused 1
    22 April 2008 at 12:03 pm

    Labour does the same thing, what’s your point? It’s ok for Labour to do it and not National?

  2. Steve Pierson 2
    22 April 2008 at 12:28 pm

    infused. it is not good enough for a party to complain, and use those complaints as the basis for being elected as government, when it has no solutions. National may as well complain that the weather is worse under Labour – they wouldn’t have any solution to that either.

  3. Macky 3
    22 April 2008 at 12:52 pm

    No righties leaping to National’s defence.

  4. Steve Pierson 4
    22 April 2008 at 1:05 pm

    Well, they don’t have any answer. National complains about a whole lot of things but their polices would just make things worse.

    On a side note: I ‘m really disappointed in Simon Power. when he first came to Parliament he looked like he was going places. 8 years later he’s just a muck-raker, tutored in the school of Ryall, making a mountain out of every molehill he can find. he seems to have no grasp of substantive issues and policy. They used to talk about him as leadership material, now they joke that after every National leadership change Power remains next in line to the throne but one.

  5. Monty 5
    22 April 2008 at 1:06 pm

    I wonder if you guys are being so deliberately dim. We know you love the partial and out of context quote about wages dropping – but no one is listening to you. It simply is not credible.

    National will introduce policies that will make it more worth while for people to wantt o stay in NZ. There will always be some emigration. But all that Labour has managed to do after nine years is accelerate the rate of people saying enough of Clark and her corrupt government, enough of high taxes, and nanny state, lets bail to Australia. The cure will not come overnight – after nine years of Labour there are systemic problems and no simple cure.

    50% no think National will do a better job than Labour in addressing this and other issues. only about 35% think Labour are best to take us forward at this point in time. (I also suggest a fair % of that 35% will be pleasantly surprised when National take the Government benches later this year and find out / realise how they have been duped by Labour for the past nine years.)

  6. Draco TB 6
    22 April 2008 at 1:22 pm

    I wonder if you guys are being so deliberately dim. We know you love the partial and out of context quote about wages dropping – but no one is listening to you. It simply is not credible.

    What JK said leaves you with two possible questions. Does JK (National) want wages to drop? or is JK (National) economically illiterate? Neither bodes well.

    But all that Labour has managed to do after nine years is accelerate the rate of people saying enough of Clark and her corrupt government, enough of high taxes, and nanny state, lets bail to Australia.

    No, people are just going to where they’re paid what they’re worth. This isn’t a bad reflection on the government but on the employers.

    (I also suggest a fair % of that 35% will be pleasantly surprised when National take the Government benches later this year and find out / realise how they have been duped by Labour for the past nine years.)

    If National take get into government then I suspect 50% of the people will be surprised when the shit hits the fan. National really will make things worse because they really do seem to be economically illiterate and do want wages to drop.

  7. Steve Pierson 7
    22 April 2008 at 1:44 pm

    Monty “National will introduce policies that will make it more worth while for people to want o stay in NZ”

    – what will they be?

    They won’t provide better public service, they won’t lift wage, they won’t drop taxes significantly more than Labour, and they won’t roll back any of Labour’s social policies – in fact, it’s more likely that Australia will adopt NZ social policies, particularly civil unions.

  8. Policy Parrot 8
    22 April 2008 at 1:48 pm

    Monty – people don’t want the 1990s National back. They voted for Labour for three straight elections, partly on the premise that they didn’t want 1990s National in power.

    – They voted to INCREASE taxes in 1999 to 39% on those earning $60,000 and above.
    – They looked to stable government which was honest about its broader intentions – and did what they would.
    – They thoroughly rejected (three times) a continuance of the neo-liberal “experience” – which still has major legacy impacts on today’s society.

    Many of things which you so decry are in fact policies which have carried out in response to the overwhelming demand of the population for such remedy. In fact some of them were introduced in Labour’s first term – seems that they were popular enough to survive two elections.

    What keeps National from power is a dogged perception that it will continue its previous track of dishonest politics and window-dressed “winner takes all” ideology.

    Thats what will keep it from power this October.

  9. Billy 9
    22 April 2008 at 2:30 pm

    Actually, I think this attack is pretty pointless. Unlike those on the left, I consider that there are a great many problems that are beyond the power of government to fix. I think this is one of them.

  10. Patrick 10
    22 April 2008 at 2:50 pm

    Sorry Billy, are you referring to emigration or low wages?

    I think you may have actually hit on something though, I think a lot of the problems that John Key whines about he will never have any power, let alone the ideas, to actually solve. Should we have the misfortune of a National led government this time next year, I wonder how the people of New Zealand will feel when not only their wages are the same, but Key’s cuts to the public service start deteriorating their quality of life.

    I think it’s really sad.

    Captcha: the baffling

  11. Billy 11
    22 April 2008 at 2:52 pm

    Emigration.

    I think he’s just writing a cheque future John Key won’t be able to honour.

  12. Psycho Milt 12
    22 April 2008 at 4:29 pm

    I think he’s just writing a cheque future John Key won’t be able to honour.

    Yep. People will emigrate under a National govt too.

  13. Felix 13
    22 April 2008 at 4:42 pm

    Quite. There’s more to NZ-Australia migration than the “wage gap”. There’s also the “tropical beach gap” and the considerable “king prawn gap” to take into account.

  14. Matthew Pilott 14
    22 April 2008 at 4:58 pm

    Felix – nice 8) . Then there’s the “theme park gap”, “bikini gap” and a few more I better not mention in case my other half is reading this…

  15. randal 15
    22 April 2008 at 5:06 pm

    most people leave because Noo Zillun is an insular little backwater at the ass of end of nowhere where some of the peasants own theire own dirt and think they are ARISTOCRATS! Q.E.D. other people stay because they feel an obligation to keep the aristocrats delusions of grandeur and propensity to whip their vassals in check.

  16. Billy 16
    22 April 2008 at 5:20 pm

    randal,

    Remember, it is only the evil right wing that run down NZ.

  17. randal 17
    22 April 2008 at 7:54 pm

    is-ought, normative-positive, objective-subjective, the truth!
    billy dont try to be a hero…

  18. AncientGeek 18
    22 April 2008 at 9:42 pm

    This emigration pattern happens every time that aussie goes through a resources boom. Whatever party is in opposition at the time always highlights it as if it was a new and severe problem.

    Very boring.

The server will be getting hardware changes this evening starting at 10pm NZDT.
The site will be off line for some hours.