David Burton is an employment law barrister at www.burtonlaw.co.nz.
OPINION: Reflecting on the current Government’s track record on employment matters over the past term, it appears that the tail has truly wagged the dog.
The ACT Party has decimated long-established employment laws that have largely been settled and agreed to for many years by the two main parties, the National Party and the Labour Party.
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National came to power on a platform of Blame, Blame, Blame and tiny tax cuts that are costing $14.6 billion over four years. “Our plan is carefully targeted to ensure that those who will benefit the most are working New Zealanders. It’s about time they got some relief from Labour’s cost-of-living crisis and National will deliver that to them,” Christopher Luxon said.
The following Budget, the Government clawed back some of these tax cut costs with its retrograde steps to addressing pay equity issues that had previously been agreed to between the Labour Party and the National Party.
The cost to addressing those inequities was significant. The previous budget had allocated some $17 billion over four years, suggesting that in the government-funded sector the costs of settling pay equity claims could be considerable. The Prime Minister has admitted that those changes to pay equity laws are going to save the Government “billions of dollars”, but...
Millions of Aussies will be cheering Ben Roberts-Smith after seeing his publicity campaign. But we must leave all these matters to a criminal court to decide – this time beyond reasonable doubt.