Posts by Gareth Ward
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It is disappointing to learn that some employers are already pushing down wages, especially as there’s a tax credit to offset at least part of their contribution for the first two years.
Sure, but imagine how disappointing it is to be in the throes of setting up shop in Aussie and finding that that tax haven expects employers to chip in a compulsory 9% of annual salary to super *and* to pay a payroll tax of 6% (once your payroll exceeds $50k/month).
All in all that comes to an effective income tax of 15% over and above the headline rate.
Indeed, and in Australia that's all now a fixed cost of business, it has no impact on the competitive job market as it's a given. We need to remember that wages are a demand-driven economy like everything else, and in a tight market like we have now, the employers fixed cost components of a wage mean especially little - it's how they are paying in relation to others in the market. Yes, there will be say 2% (50% uptake of a 4% contribution?) less room in the budget for paying top-line salary increases to retain or attract staff but the market is tight enough that if you say to an employee "I've stopped your pay rise because of Kiwisaver" they'll wander off somewhere else that is willing to pay the extra for them.
Employment is priced based on demand, not on cost. -
For sure. I just think it would have been more prudent to concede that National might have to talk with a range of parties, but simply decline to speculate on anything to do with the foreign affairs job. McCully won't have been impressed ...
If he's f^%ked off McCully then I'm doubly impressed!
But yes, could have been handled better in a politico-media sense, but he wasn't wrong. Not much of a kiwiblog regular, but made for funny reading yesterday as comments of "credibility on the line, laughing stock, unworkable government" where made and then suddenly went rather quiet for a bit there after Key said he'd have the same thing... -
Agreed that Key seemed to handover political points yesterday but at least the guy was being honest about the realities of an MMP political system where currently the 2 major parties seem destined to run close enough to one another that they will pretty evenly split the vote...
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On FibreCo, my first response was "not another uncompetitive no-incentive-to-invest network company!" But on review, there seems to be no unregulated model that is going to get us that investment - if we don't create a national fibre backbone entity, I can't see any private firm that is going to, let alone 2 or 3 different ones to make it competitive. It does seem to have "aggregated public good" to it that makes it a sensible national investment where it's not sensible as a private one.
So long as their was planning in there to compel it to continuously innovate and push the investment along in line with world standards, I think it's our best bet. And we have a fairly good set of public-commercial-network businesspeople from our electricity (particularly), water and roading companies that could make it happen. They're all about prioritised investment, balancing risk/uptime/cost, long term asset plans and working under a regulated delivery model.
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God, sometimes I wonder if you have to be psychotic or a drug fiend to work in television news and current affairs.
God, sometimes I WISH you had to be a psychotic or a drug fiend to work in television news and current affairs!
At least the angles of the story would be a little less obvious and who DOESN'T want to see Mark Sainsbury tell everyone it's OK because his moustache has told him the location of the Green Party's underground postal system... -
I'm a pro-market business person. I like capitalism, and I think it can do a lot of good. I'd be prepared to vote for the Nats if they were to simplify tax and employment paperwork so it was easier to run a business, improve the quality of schools and universities so I could easily hire smart people, and so on. I don't even see that.
Nat, I'm of a similar ilk. The party that would get my vote this time around is the one that can lay out a focussed, determined effort to lift NZ economic productivity in order to generate the wealth we need to make this a top class society. To my mind this involves enouraging a solid capital market, delivering national and international infrastructure that makes it easy for businesses to operate, encourage research to drive innovation and provide a talented pool of people to help drive all that. And to my commerce-degree'd-Takapuna-raised-corporate-jobbed-white-boy surprise, that ground (whilst not perfect) has been Labour's for the last 3-4 years (Kiwisaver, business tax cuts, R&D tax cuts, NZT&E, university reform, infrastructure spending etc) and continues to be so.
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And does Peter Brown perhaps writes Scoop's headlines for them? The Government's own press release hailing all the various changes in tariffs etc is re-headlined to read:
"Trade Agreements: FTA Brings Chinese Workers To NZ"
which is surely one of the more minor points off the whole thing? -
Well poor Mr Brown will be choking on his whitebread this afternoon - the FTA is letting up to 1800 more of them in! Proper real China Asians!
And they're Gibberish Speakers (Mandarin Teachers) and Ninjas (Wushu coaches)!
http://chinafta.govt.nz/1-The-agreement/1-Key-outcomes/2-Services/4-Temporary-entry-and-employment/index.php/tongue-in-cheek
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Interestingly, it appears that a revamp of the Misuse of Drugs Act to allow for testing and approval of novel recreational drugs is still on the cards
Now this I completely support - shift the onus on to one of proven safety, rather than moral panic. If it could subsequently be extended to a complete clean-slate revamp of the MODA for ALL drugs that would be great.
What annoyed me most about BZP was that it was being sold as a product for human consumption without independent testing that it was OK to do so - and the banning seemed equally without tested merit. -
Well that slowdown ain't here yet:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/3/story.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10500670
Best part of that is that it was driven by business plant investment