Press Release
Stephen Berry
Labour Goes Soviet with Employment Policy
Political chameleon and party leader Phil Goff announced Labour’s employment policy today. It is a policy that has been
met with disbelief and bewilderment by Tamaki Independent candidate, Stephen Berry. “Labour is showing all the
desperation of a drowning rat with its throwback to pre-80’s, hammer and sickle style plans for reform of employment
law.”
“Aside from their insidious determination to increase unemployment by lifting the minimum wage to $15, Labour really has
gone off the kiwi rails with their proposal to further regulate wages and conditions with a whole new bureaucracy,”
Berry says. Labour plans to appoint a Workplace Commissioner within the Employment Relations Authority to set minimum
conditions and wage levels for individual industries.
“This idiocy harks back to the days before the reforms of Roger Douglas when Governments would negotiate with unions to
set wage levels in each industry. Goff is so desperate to hold on to his leadership position that he is proposing to
eliminate the very reforms, which he was once part of, that took New Zealand out of the shadow of socialism and economic
mediocrity in the 1980s. Just when our economy continues to stall without essential economic liberalisation, Goff wants
to give wealth creators a jackboot in the nether regions.”
Berry says that while Labour is not planning on taking us back to compulsory unionism, yet, it does contain the same
lack of values usually found in trade and teacher unions. “This policy has been cooked up by people who hate success and
hate hard work. It is designed for those who expect pay rises whether they deserve them or not. It is an assistance
package for the lazy and mediocre, rewarding those without ambition. If people are worth more money they will be able to
negotiate for more with their employer, without government intervention. Labour’s plan will give more to the lazy and
make rewarding the productive less affordable for business.”
Stephen Berry believes the answer to our current economic malaise lies in less laws and regulations, not more. “Our
economic salvation lies in the free market, low taxes, smaller government and freedom for individuals. It does not lie
in the return to Soviet central economic planning proposed by chameleon Phil Goff.”
Ends