Yesterday Labour launched our Youth Skills policy. Jacinda did an excellent post on the details just after it went public. If you live in Wellington and missed it in the DomPost this morning, look again. You’ll see all the salient details comprehensively covered in the news brief below and to the left of the quarter page article and photo espousing John Key’s babysitting and travel companion potential.
There is a certain symmetry to Labour launching a policy to get young Kiwis into work on the same day the National government signed off on a deal to buy a bunch of new electric trains for Auckland from overseas, rather than build them locally here in New Zealand. I think it’s great that Auckland are getting much needed investment in their public transport infrastructure, but why aren’t we cashing in the potential to create somewhere around 1,000 new jobs and add up to $250 million to our GDP?
The link between these two announcements actually runs a lot deeper than highlighting the contrast between Labour, who want to create local jobs, and National, who want to export them overseas. When I speak to a lot of the tradespeople in my electorate, I’m reminded just how many of them did their apprenticeships at the railway workshops, the post office, the car assembly plants, or the freezing works. With the exception of the railway workshops, that now employs a fraction of the staff it once did, all of those big employers are gone.
Those tradespeople are now sole traders or work largely in firms that employ fewer than 10 people. Taking on an apprentice is something they’re more than happy to do. They learned their trade on the job and they’re more than happy to give future generations the same chance. But it’s a huge commitment financially and a lot to ask of such small businesses. That’s why I know they’ll welcome Labour’s plan to convert the dole into apprenticeships subsidies.
A lot of people have remarked to me in the past how crazy it is we pay a young person to sit at home on the dole but we won’t provide some financial support to those willing to take them on and train them up. Well Labour is going to do something about that. Our Youth Skills policy is one that I’m very proud to campaign on. Our plan to get thousands of young Kiwis into work, education and training is in marked contrast to National’s plan to give a couple of hundred young beneficiaries a pre-pay purchase card.
So while baby-sitter John devotes his time to worrying about how young people spend their pocket money, Labour is focused on providing them with a meaningful vocation and hope for the future. Oh, what was that about nanny state again…?
The trouble with you Labour people is that you are blinded by academia. Not enough of you have hands on business expererience therefore you run with theory and not what will actually work in practice.
The best way to get young people into the workforce is to give them opportunities in after school, weekend and holdiday jobs so that they gain the work ethic and experience. To make this attractive to employers you have to restore youth rates – no employer should be expected to pay $13.00 an hour for an inexperienced youth when they can get a mature productive adult for the same rate of pay.
Labour, NZ First and The Greens did the young people of New Zealand a huge disservice when they abolished youth rates.
LOL
Babysitter John, just be careful he might get hungry …
I though the deal to buy the new trains was ready for approval 2.5 years ago. Oh yes then there was a merry go round while Joyce played politics so he could announce it just before the coming election
Hi Chris, I asked Jacinda but didn’t get an answer, so maybe you can help, where is this policy costed in your spending announcement? Will these mean more debt added on or will you raise another tax to pay for it?
Also please explain how this is different from the same policy announced in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004, which each time you said would take three years to bring in, but which you didn’t manage all the time you were in government last time. How can we expect you to be able to achieve it next time if you didn’t manage it last time?
I don’t understand you guys. I moved here in 2007 from the UK, i’ve listened to the rhetoric that came out of the Blair/Brown years, the same stuff coming from the coalition government and now the same vain from you fellas and National.
You all spin the same ideas, over and over and over again. I’d put money down that in the past, perhaps over your last reign, that you announced initiatives to get young people off the dole and in to training, most likely the same as above, and i’d put money on National telling people to get a job or we’ll take your dole etc… The thing is, you plough millions into these projects but the results hardly seem worth the money, otherwise you’d surely be carrying on with a scheme that actually works for our kids and not having to keep reinventing the same ideas.
You claim there’s a difference between yourselves and this awful National government but really, and perhaps i’m just cynical, there isn’t at all. Come an election year you both spout the same BS you’ve spouted in the past and claim that it’s ‘new’ or ‘progressive’.
Softstarter said – “I’d put money down that in the past, perhaps over your last reign, that you announced initiatives to get young people off the dole and in to training, most likely the same as above.”
Actually Bill Rowling first announced it in 1980!!!
softstarter you better pay attention. It seems [no need to insult other commenters - Chris].
Firstly, Labour is going to give a real tax cut to all earners. Not just the toffs and the millionaires.
Secondly, Labour is going to help many thousands of young NZers into skills and skilled jobs. Not try and control their lives with daddy state debit cards.
Thirdly, Labour is going to keep NZ’s strategic energy assets in full Kiwi ownership not sell them off to foreigners.
Fourthly, Labour is going to increase the minimum wage by roughly 15%, whereas National want to cut the minimum wage for young workers.
So you are both cynical and inattentive. Move on, nothing to see here.
An excellent summary Chris. Thank you. softstarter is right in one respect – Labour helps people into jobs, National when in government dismantles those programmes so they subsequently have to be re-formed – with changes to suit each era, but indeed a very similar policy. National seem to think that new school leavers are somehow different from those of only a few years ago! Any programme will only affect a few directly, but that does lead to more people working, less needing benefits, workers with more money to support themselves, buying services that need more workers. Helping young people into jobs is a very good investment – far more useful than a plastic card.
pdm, we have had higher levels of youth unemployment in the past, when we had youth rates, than we have now.
My favoured ideas are
1. 16 and 17 year olds can only leave school when they go onto further education, training or a job. Otherwise they stay at school and do NCEA or some of the other options now available – they include work experience part-time with work related vocational training at either the school or at the workplace.
2. there is a training wage for those over 18 at half the minimum wage – for the duration of the training. Half of $15 an hour would be $7.50, $300 a week and get trained and all without a student debt.
@CV
“Firstly, Labour is going to give a real tax cut to all earners.”
They are, but the structure of it isn’t exactly going to set the economy alight.
accordinjg to rightwinger hootin on 9-noon last week national was going to create 170,000 jobs next year. they are supposed to be the party of business but all they do is destroy them. They speak with a fork tongue tonto.
Oh CV, how i’ve missed your comical hatred for, well just about everybody.
Firstly, Labour isn’t going to keep NZ’s strategic energy assets in full Kiwi ownership because they’re not going to win the election. I don’t agree with Nats policy on this, I work for one of these SOEs.
‘Secondly, Labour is going to help many thousands of young NZers into skills and skilled jobs.’ – I hope so, but as I said above, what’s different to ALL THE OTHER INITATIVES ANNOUNCED BY ALL PARTIES OVER THE PAST 20+ YEARS AND WHY WILL IT WORK THIS TIME AND WHY HASN’T IT WORKED BEFORE?
Tax-free allowances has been around in the UK and other parts of the developed world for decades, it’s clever and I support it, but it’s hardly new or progressive. Like CGT, don’t try to claim it as your idea.
In Chris’ thought provocing post above I see no mention of either policy on SOEs or tax-free allowances, I thought it was a post around jobs in NZ. Cynical yes, inattentive no.
We live in a world dominated by the private sector, capitalism and materialism combined but we have had to rely on the public, me you and our mum’s money, thru taxes and rates to bailout the private sector again and again and also thru the state sector create the jobs, opprtunities and economic stimulius with infrastructre project that the private sector cant or wont provide…its my money, my hard earned taxes that is propping up the, economy private and public sectors. Wihtout the state sector and govt investment in schemes, projects etc this country would have slide into a depression.
I gave my taxes readily during the 90′s so cullen could pay down debt so in the bad predicted times we could borrow prudently to stabilise the economy.
explain to me just how the private sector wouldve stablised the economy for the beaterment of us all…
@Ghost 4.45 – Bleep me!
I think somebody should point that out! 
more youth jobs is easy – reintroduce youth rates!
kiwis given training to rebuild Christchurch is a great idea – and do it on subsidized training via youth rates. Ongoing cost beneficial solution for all – save the dole payments without needing to pay them out as incentives to employers.