John Key Twits

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Kiwi-John-Key

A recent twitter from Dear Leader caught my eye…

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Key Twitting

Source: Twitter

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Which is remarkable, as only last year, John Key had this to say about low-paid workers (predominantly women) in the aged care sector,

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TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

pm-no-money-for-aged-care-workers1

Source: Fairfax Media –  PM: No money for aged care workers

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Indeed, he was dismissive about any increase for low-paid workers,

It’s one of those things we’d love to do if we had the cash. As the country moves back to surplus it’s one of the areas we can look at but I think most people would accept this isn’t the time we have lots of extra cash.” – John Key, 28 May, 2012

As a sop to criticism, he added,

Key this morning acknowledged there were problems with rural rest homes workers paying for their own travel, effectively reducing their wage below the minimum wage of $13.50 an hour.

Travel is one of those areas where we are looking at what we can do.”

Source: IBID

His committment to find other ways to remunerate low-paid workers of course never amounted to anything. They never do.

Of course, Key’s lament of a lack of cash hasn’t stopped government ministers, SOE executives, and departmental heads from generous salary increases.  Nor throwing massive corporate welfare-subsidies at Rio Tinto, Warner Bros, Rugby World CupSouthern China Airlines, a golf tournament, etc, etc.

Every low-paid, exploited, worker in this country has a vested interest in voting at the next election.

Getting rid of this repugnant, self-serving government is the only way to make Key’s tweet above become a reality for those who most need it.

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Previous related blogposts

Priorities?

Health Minister circumvents law to fulfill 2008 election bribe?

Aged Care: The Price of Compassion

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11 COMMENTS

  1. When wages are $13 and $15, the difference is quite small, so we have a low gender gap – because wages are so low!

  2. … agree. Reducing the wage gap between genders is hardly something to crow about when you have moved the top rate down to meet the bottom one.

        • Ummm… none of those statistics you provided really support the claim I was questioning. This was to do with the top rate (average wage rate of Kiwi men) falling in relation to the bottom rate (average wage rate of Kiwi women). Wage rate differentials between Australia and New Zealand are irrelevant in that context so I am not sure why you bring them in to the discussion.

          • Unfortunately, Mr Gosman is right: the statistics quote in those article are largely meaningless. I’ll take the first of the links Mr Macskasy provides. It simply compares median wages and salaried across Oz and NZ from 2008 and 2012. That the difference in the respective median day’s pay has increased 50% in that time in favour of Oz sounds pretty dire.

            This could be a case of ‘lies, damn lies, and statistics.’ What does it mean? The median wage is that at which we could say that as many people earn above it as below. It is the 50-percentile mark. If you called it an ‘average’, you would be correct, but it is not the mean (which is usually what we think of as an average).

            Given that there are a lot of people with no wage or salary by way of income, and yet there are several with six and seven figure salaries, the median is in many respects a ‘truer’ reflection of how ordinary wage and salary earners are doing. It would be more meaningful were other percentiles included in the presentation.

            So far as the ‘gender’ differences, I don’t see anything in those articles. On the other hand, it is not clear that the ordinate of Key’s graph depicts percentages. It just presents numbers, without saying what they are (neat trick that). Why, then, should we suppose they are percentages? Why should we not infer they they are dollars?

            If course the graph says absolutely nothing about what the values are that are being compared.

            You know how you can tell when Key is lying? His lips move.

            • Umm, the ‘y’ axis is labeled “%”.

              And if you called the median an average as you stated, you certainly wouldn’t be correct. The median is always lower than the average.

  3. I’m sure women’s fiscal status will be foremost on his mind when shaking the hand of Her Highness today. I hope the Queen counts the rings on her fingers afterwards.

  4. Consider that the lowest wage earners in NZ are supported by the benefit system as well:Working for families,accommodation allowance, student allowance, community service card, rates reduction and tax rebate.

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