Press Release
Stephen Berry
Minimum Wage

Thank Freedom It Isn’t a Green Budget

Tamaki Independent candidate Stephen Berry believes the Green party is being at best economically naive and at worst intellectually dishonest with the proposals they have put forward for this year’s budget.

“To advocate increasing government revenue through an increase in the minimum wage is akin to wearing fluffy jackboots to extort more from the productive.”

Berry believes the move to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour would be completely ineffective in dealing with the Government’s deficit spending and have widespread economic impacts on those who create wealth in New Zealand.

“The Green Party’s figures show that the increased income tax and GST this proposal would raise would amount to $173 million a year. That
figure is less than half of what this government borrows in one week to fund its deficit. Instead of the revolutionary approach needed to solve the current budget crisis, the Green party serves up Muldoonist tinkering.

Their figures also fail to take into account the increased cost of welfare to service the greater number of unemployed this step would result in.”

Green party co-leader Metiria Turei is at least willing to concede the destructive effect an increase in the minimum wage would have on
small and medium businesses. She suggests the government provide a targeted subsidy to assist these businesses to cover the increased wage costs.

“What is the point of increasing costs on business to increase revenue when that increased revenue is only going to be used to subsidise those businesses which cannot afford the cost? This proposal is an enormous increase in regulation, and a giant kick in the teeth for the economy,
simply to fund three days of government borrowing.”

Stephen Berry believes there needs to be a much more radical change in the role of government to solve the issue of the budget deficit.

“Government should only be protecting the right of the individual to
live their life without force, not spending other people’s money to control our lives.”

Berry believes the minimum wage is economically harmful, morally
wrong and should be phased out. “It does not take a degree in economics to realise that when the price of labour is artificially increased above what the market is willing to pay, then the demand for labour at the higher price will be reduced. This is what our schools teach high school students.”

“In a free society an employer and a prospective employee should have the freedom to negotiate a wage which is acceptable to both. This
will increase employment in low-skilled and low-wage occupations and
drastically reduce the number of people claiming the unemployment benefit.

The government needs to mind its damn business and leave the economy free to grow unimpeded!”

Ends .

© Scoop Media