Stephen Berry
Unemployment

Tamaki Independent candidate Stephen Berry finds Labour’s plan to reduce youth unemployment laughable and believes the party’s math just doesn’t add up. Labour intends to divert state cash from dole payments and use them as a training subsidy for employers. “The youth unemployment problem was created by the state increasing its involvement in the economy. Now Labour wants to fix the problem with more Government intervention. What will they do when that fails I wonder?”

Berry argues that the solution is less state involvement, not more. “Labour created this problem by pricing youth labour above its true value in the market. Basic economics demonstrate that when a service is artificially priced above what the market is willing to pay, demand drops and an over-supply is created. This over-supply has manifested itself into a youth unemployment rate of 27%.”

“The solution is not to divert taxpayer dollars from unemployment benefits to corporate welfare by paying businesses to accept apprentices. It is a twisted, tangled web of bureaucracy spun by braindead ideologues failing to improve on what the free market is quite capable of doing itself, thank you very much.”

Berry also points out the mathematics of Labour’s proposal do not add up either. “Phil Goff claims the $171 million cost of this policy to combat youth unemployment will be funded by Labour’s capital gains tax. Yes, that is same capital gains tax that will only raise $700 million a year in fifteen years time and is also going to be used to end the deficit and fund innovation grants for further corporate welfare. If quality output were a pre-requisite for being in Parliament, the entire Labour party would be unemployed.”

Stephen Berry has a very different solution to unemployment.
• Abolish the minimum wage for youth and adults, leaving employees and employers free to negotiate a wage that is sustainable.
• Set a cut off date for unemployment benefit applications which will eventually see it abolished.
• Use the savings in welfare to help afford the creation of a $15,000 income tax free threshold so people on lower incomes keep more of their own money
• As spending cuts and privatisations reduce the budget deficit, begin making cuts in the company tax rate

“Free individuals are quite capable of creating wealth for themselves without direction from the Government. The way to reduce unemployment is to take the iron hands off the economy and let people get on with the task of making money!”

ENDS

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