So Bill English has given up when it comes to the New Zealand economy? That is how it sounded yesterday on Q and A. The wage gap with Australia is here to stay, and we should see it as a strategic advantage. As others have noted this is a far cry from the election campaign when the gap with Australia was the number one issue for National.
David Parker exposed all of this last year when pursuing Gerry Brownlee as to whether the wage gap had widened, which it has.
But this morning John Key has joined in with Bill English in flagging away an pretense of ambition for New Zealand. He is proudly stating that he opened a call centre on the North Shore as the way of the future. Is that as good as it gets? Is this ambitious for New Zealand?
You have heard Labour say a lot that the government does not have a plan for the economy. This is why. We need to invest in skills, training, innovation and clean technology to lift our economic performance. Through its tax cuts targeting the wealthy National’s vision is limited to their tired old faith in trickle down economics. It won’t work, we need an active government supporting the people and businesses who will grow our economy.
But they do have a plan for our economy – it’s to give it all to the rich. This makes it so that we can become renters in our own land allowing the rich to bludge a living off of us.
And now after all their pre election posturing on brain drains and closing the gap with Australia, Bill tells us that those who care about that are just “mesmerised” by Australia. WTF??!!??
Yet another contradiction by the National government. The best the right wing blogs can come up with this week is a bit about Labours infighting, which seems rather irrelevant to me. Place this in context to their leaders recent admission that they think the some 200,000 more unemployed is somehow a good thing because it will keep wages low so that New Zealand is more competitive with Australia. Not so competitive with India or China though huh!
I despair and expect that the number of PLT departures from NZ to Aust will start to increase. The Australian economy is again strong, skill shortages are evident, particularly in many trades, construction in Qld is growing too. The hands-off and hope economic strategy isn’t working!
Do you really think that’s what they said?
Did you do english comprehension at school?
I suggest his English comprehension is better than your Maths, as demonstrated on another thread.
It wasn’t the maths that was wrong, Rob, merely the lack of care in not bothering to look up the numbers.
Mea Culpa.
At least, as I said at the time, with my error the principle still remained. With PW’s error of comprehension, of course, it doesn’t.
Such comments by English and co. make me so angry, yes!!! one day we may be able to live in a magical country with no minimum wage, no osh/labour regulations and therefore the ability to make little plastic pieces of crap for the dollar stores of the world!
When a party actively campaigns on reducing the wage gap with oz (stupid comparison as Oz has great mineral wealth in areas in the middle of nowhere, whereas we have mineral wealth in areas of conservation/tourism value) then uses the gap as a positive to attract investment, one must feel that closing the gap is not high on the list of priorities at all.
Please labour stop the infighting, get on the same page, the New Zealand public need a strong opposition at this time more than ever.
I have heard Labour saying the government has no plan for the economy. What I am waiting for is Labour’s plan – diagnosis, prescription and promise. Talk about innovation and skills doesn’t cut it – it sounds like a rerun of the “Knowledge Economy.” As for working with business – which ones and how is crucial detail.
Investing in skills, training, research and innovation costs money – something scace in an economy that is not growing. So either a programme to realise growth or some other means of funding this has to be proposed.
R and D tax credits at 15% restored, tax incentives to support post education paid training on the job and tax incentives to support formulation of venture capital and reinvestment of company profit are some options. They could be financed by increasing the rate of company tax on larger corporates. Why not adopt the American practice of higher rates on larger companies (more able to exploit tax incentives and tax minimisation strategies) such as banks.
As for growth, we need public investment home building in Auckland – the homes can be on-sold to the private sector to repay the debt. The important thing is to get the jobs and increase housing supply before rents blow out and families face increasing hardship.
We’ll be working for tacos next!
…if having lower wages than OZ should not be considered as a competitive advantage, what are NZ’s competitive advantages, Labour?
The most likely investment to come from Australia in response to our companies doing well (because of the exchange rate to some extent) in competing with their existing service and goods suppliers, is from their transfer to lower cost zones in India, SE Asia and China. I am not sure if English realises that or if he just thinks the Aussies are too stupid to realise that.