…the frank admiration across the Tasman for English’s economic policies is something that has not been displayed by Australian power-brokers since this country was in the grip of Rogernomics and Bill Birch’s labour market reforms.

Bad comparison Fran. Who in their right mind would want to own up to admiring the dreadful Bill Birch’s Employment Contracts Act or the damage inflicted by Roger Douglas?

And then today the Dom Post reports that Australian firms are moving jobs to New Zealand, attracted by our low wages and more “flexible” labour rights.

Hundreds of Australian jobs have been shifted to New Zealand as producers there try to avoid the impact of high wages, a soaring dollar and restrictive labour laws.

Supermarket giant Woolworths is the latest to transfer jobs across the Tasman, shifting 40 contact centre jobs to Auckland this week.

Imperial Tobacco has also said it will move cigarette manufacturing from Sydney to New Zealand.

As David Parker says, there are record numbers of Kiwis leaving for Australia. They are not going so they can work in call centres or cigarette-making factories.

“National made closing the wage gap a key election pledge in 2008. It now wants to attract investment to New Zealand on the basis of cheap wages.

Heinz Wattie has already ditched 300 jobs across Australia and supposedly was bringing them to New Zealand.

But not for good New Zealand jobs. These days, a Heinz Watties worker is just as likely to end up being employed by Allied Workforce – a temporary labour hire contractor, and be paid minimum wage – doing the same job directly employed and unionised workers used to do for a whole lot less.

Perhaps the brighter future we were promised involves rolling ciggies for Australia?

It certainly seems to involve low wages.

- $500 m ($3b in Australia) over 6 years to upskill the workforce

- $110m ($558m) to a new National Workforce Development Fund for 130,000 industry training places

- $40m (100m) on apprenticeships.

Will National’s budget come anywhere near to putting the same investment into skills and training? Well, I’m not holding my breath. But if you wanted the evidence to see the gap grow wider, here it is.

Salt peppered his address with plenty of NZ references. How we parallel Australia in farm aggregation pushing us to increasingly live on or near the coast, how we face a ‘man drought’ – from about age 22 there are more females than males, peaking at age 35 with a 12% disparity. ( A key part of that being more young Kiwi men than women heading to Australia, in particular, for higher paid work. Salt noted that we have around 550,000 NZers living in Australia and if you tote up the rest, the thick end of one million Kiwis living overseas.

Meanwhile, 2011 sees the first baby boomers turning 65 and able to retire with a pension.  For Australia that means while last year it had a net gain of 250.000 people coming into the workforce, this year it’s only at best 150,000. Maintaining any net gain of workers vs retirees each year can only be maintained if Australia keeps up its acceptance of migrants.

Salt notes that when Japan’s demographic fault line occured in 1994 – more retiring than starting work – the Japanese economy stalled and has never recovered. Baby boomer Australians can now expect to live till 85 on average; 40 years ago it was 72. NZ figures will be similar. My dad died last year at 91; he had been retired 30 years.

Salt argues that Australia needs to actively boost its acceptance of migration to meet increasing life expectancy, to prop up the tax base, fill gaps in the skills base,  meet some humanitarian obligations – and bluntly, because taking 20-somethings that some other country has educated means getting 40 years of work for no earlier costs. (And yes, while this can be seen as “robbing’ third world countries, he maintains that the world is going to get more brutal in competition for resources, and many who chose to live in Australia will repatriate funds home.)

Some big issues here for us to consider. Immigration has long been a key driver of maintaining NZ’s economic growth. I’ve long thought one of the problems is that too many migrants head for Auckland and put infrastructure, the environment and housing costs under further pressure. If there were a mechanism to encourage more migrants into the areas where NZ is depopulating – rural communities, some provincial cities – we would get a win/win; population growth where it’s more needed and better use of public assets at some risk, such as schools and hospitals. I put this to Salt after his address. Turns out he has written recently on the issue and believes there is a case for encouraging migrants who agree to live for a few years in rural/provincial areas. Sure, once they gained permanent residence or citizenship they would be free to live anywhere – but some are likely to have put down roots. Personally there are few parts of NZ which I couldn’t see myself living, if for example, family connections drew me to it.  

I’m not convinced we need a ’Big New Zealand’ policy. I’d prefer to see us drawing back some of those near 1 million expatriate Kiwis. We did get a boost when the global recession happened but frankly, it’s a big ask with wage rate differentials of 30% across the Tasman. Migration tailed off as a result of the recession but will undoubtedly pick up at some point.  

Steering more new arrivals into areas other than Auckland, especially some of our rural towns and cities, would seem to make sense.

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.

The Secretary for Workplace Relations, Senator Jacinta Collins has released a discussion paper, which canvasses a  range of practical strategies to reduce deaths and improve road safety in the heavy transport industry.

Called the “Safe Rates, Safe Roads” paper, it explores options for a national approach to truck drivers’ pay and conditions and safety measures across the industry.

Built on the back of a Safe Rates Advisory Group set up by the Labor government last term, the government has managed to bring the industry, unions and other road users together for an honest appraisal of the problems of speed and fatigue in the road transport industry  and the economic incentives for drivers to engage in unsafe work practices.

The Australians have come up with a clear body of evidence linking pay rates to safety on their roads. Like here, drivers feel pressure to work long hours to meet schedules, leading to work time breaches, speeding and cutting corners on maintenance.

The discussion paper examines a system of safe pay rates so drivers can work legally and safely and at the same time ensure that everyone is safe on the roads.

Meanwhile, we have “Safer Journeys” and the associated legislation which is due to be reported back in a week or so.  A lot about young drivers and the BAC, but not much in it about trucks, even although we know the road freight task is going to double in the next couple of decades.

All we get is bigger trucks.

So it was mildly amusing to see Mr McCully and Australian foreign minister Kevin Rudd speak at a joint press conference today after their meeting in Canberra. Mr McCully said they spent “a lot of time talking about our joint and shared responsibilities within this region”. And “…because we’re the dominant providers of development assistance within the region, that means we have to set the pace and set the example.”

In answer to a question from an Australian journalist Mr Rudd explained Australia’s policy on aid which to be fair is mainstream among most OECD countries. It’s just quite a long way from the current New Zealand policy:

Remember our organising principle here is reducing poverty. That is the organising principle of the Millennium Development Goals, reducing poverty by effective investment in primary healthcare, effective investment in universal primary education and effective investment in the basic levels of governance and infrastructure necessary for growth to occur.

I think the choking sound in the background must have been Mr McCully.

But the Aussies aren’t putting up with this. They will have a five day Easter Break, with all states voting to give workers an extra day off on pay on Easter Tuesday to compensate for Anzac Day.

But as the SST reports don’t hold your breath about any similar changes from our government.

Labour Minister Kate Wilkinson says “Waitangi Day won’t be Mondayised, and legislating for an extra day off at Easter is extremely unlikely”.

No surprises there I guess. Our government is too busy legislating to trade away the rights of Kiwi workers to holidays and wouldn’t dream of giving workers something they’re not strictly and legally entitled to.

And backbench National MPs continue to push for Easter Friday and Sunday shop trading.

Sometimes, it’s the simple things that matter when it comes to catching up with Australia.

I think this is one of them.

If that hadn’t happened, by now we would be in Brashimania – the country’s assets would be sold off or privatised, NZ Rail and Air NZ would be in the hands of overseas interests, steadily being stripped again of assets, the minimum wage would be gone, the labour market re-regulated in an even more draconian way than the ECA, public health and education would be kneecapped with “competition”, early childhood education would only for those who could afford it, and welfare reforms would ensure that only the “deserving poor” had any assistance – with Dr Brash deciding who they were.

Don’t get me wrong. John Key’s NACTs are just as dangerous. They’re just a bit more careful and devious, because they’re scared of public opinion and know the electorate won’t tolerate another Douglas, Ruth or Brash attack.

The 2025 Taskforce, led by Dr Brash and his cheerleading group for ACT is costing NZers half a million bucks. It’s got another year to run. Yet, its members continue to insist that the failed policies of the 1980s and 1990’s will work now – even when they didn’t work before. Cuts to workers rights, minimum wage, cuts in Working for Families, an increase in the cost of student loans, and severe cuts in other government programmes,along with privatisation of more assets and services, including health and education are all there in report # 2.

Its pleasing to see the NZ Manufacturers and Exporters Association (NZMEA) criticising the report.  The NZMEA says that the report is long on diagnosis – (yes, that’s right, we all know Australian wages are way ahead of ours)- but short on therapy.

They say, in their press release that

The Taskforce’s recommendations largely echo the Washington Consensus.  This approach has not seen substantial export growth from the countries that have applied it.  Earlier this year, the IMF recommended more pragmatism on exchange rates from small economies instead.

And Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the Managing Director of the IMF said more just last Monday with this   :

…Such ‘growth models’ were unbalanced and unsustainable and inequality may have actually stoked this unsustainable model. In countries like the United States, borrowing seemed to allow ordinary people to share in the rising prosperity…. Inequality can dampen economic opportunity, by preventing the poor from accessing the financing needed to pursue profitable investments. It can divert people toward unproductive activities.

The Washington Consensus is dead. What we need are new ideas and new thinking – the kind that is coming through in Labour policy development that had Labour Party conference delegates buzzing about a different future under a Labour government.

The Taskforce seems incapable of new thinking and should be disbanded. It discredits the government who will once again ignore its recommendations – and it makes ACT look even more stupid than they are.

Dr Brash should give NZ taxpayers our half a million bucks back and accept that the party’s over.

John Banks said this was a contest between him and a Labour mayor from south Auckland. Well, the people have spoken, and it is great to have a mayor who has campaigned and will govern as an independent but comes from the Labour side of politics.

Rodney Hide has bullied and bulldozed his super city through in a way that has left Aucklanders uncomfortable and uneasy for the last 18 months. This is the first time Aucklanders have had a say on the super city at the ballot box. They have voted for a man who has promised to undo much of the damage done by Rodney Hide.

I don’t think Aucklanders trusted a former National Party Minister to implement the agenda that National has set in place for Auckland. In Len Brown they have chosen a mayor who will not sell our assets, who they trust to give real powers to local boards, and who will hold the powerful council-owned companies to account.