Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Key disappoints again

John Key should be on the Labour benches. If he assumes the leadership of National I will at least cease to be conflicted over my support for Don Brash but distrust of National.
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3 comments:

Blair said...

Key is just positioning himself in the mainstream. He supports a minimum wage, as do (I would wager) over 90% of New Zealanders.

Let's be straight up here: $10ph is not much of a minimum wage. I doubt it is that much higher than the real market value of unskilled labour in this country. Key doesn't oppose it because in practical terms there would be little economic benefit from abolishing it.

11:37 PM
Blair said...

Dave, I understand the economics. I would love to get rid of the minimum wage. But I don't think it's important enough for us to get shitty with John Key over just because he supports it.

New Zealand has high employment and very few adults would work for less than $10ph. That suggests to me that the true market rate of unskilled labour is not much lower than ten dollars. So why would any politician with half a brain make it his Waterloo?

7:09 PM
Blair said...

I disagree, I think he does understand, as demonstrated by the last part of the quote, where he suggests that minimum wage rises have to be balanced against unemployment. So he understands its effects.

9:05 PM

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