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Employment Bill Concerns Growing
Concern is growing
as more businesses come to grips with what the new
employment bill will bring. The tortuous language of the
Employment Relations Law Reform Bill disguises the fact that
employers will be forced into collective bargaining, forced
to keep bargaining and forced to settle collective
agreements. Employees are starting to wake up to the fact
that they will be discriminated against for choosing an
individual over a collective agreement. The overall result
will be an industrial relations system pointing back to the
1970s and '80s - compulsory bargaining, compulsory
arbitration and big collective agreements similar to the old
national awards. A quick description of the Bill is on http://www.businessnz.org.nz/file/650/quickguide.pdf.
To register your concerns about the Bill contact
kasare@businessnz.org.nz ELECTRICITY
COMMISSION = HIGH POWER PRICES The proposed operating
regime for the Electricity Commission will mean higher power
prices. The Commission, which formally starts operations in
a fortnight, will have too much power to regulate and will
not be accountable or transparent enough. The governing
rules are in the Electricity & Gas Industries Bill,
currently before Parliament, which gives the Commission
power to regulate 53 areas of the market, even down to
pricing and quantities produced, and also lets the
Commission regulate over areas where it is itself a market
participant. This level of central planning does nothing to
address the lack of investment in new power generation - the
main reason for high power prices. It also means high
compliance costs and steep levies for the Commission's
running costs as well as the cost of its reserve generation
regime. Business NZ's RMA AMENDMENT BILL DOESN'T MAKE
SENSE Amending the Resource Management Act just for the
Waitaki catchment area doesn't make sense. A 'single river'
approach will only lead to further ad hoc decision making.
Problems in harnessing the resources of the Waitaki River
come down to the fact that NZ doesn't have a system for
tradeable water rights - better to address this than tinker
dangerously with the RMA. The amendment would give too much
power to Ministerial appointments, could take away existing
property rights and risks undermining future investment. It
risks giving the perception that Meridian Energy, an SOE, is
getting an unfair advantage over private generation
companies. Paradoxically, it could also lead to the
derailment of Meridian's Project Aqua, an important project
for increasing NZ's power capability. Business NZ's
submission is on <
http://www.businessnz.org.nz/d LARGE NORTH ISLAND
COUNCIL THE BIGGEST SPENDER Differential rates mean
businesses end up paying half the value of all rates in NZ.
The Local Government Forum represents businesses in seeking
improved rating structures and more restrained spending by
local bodies. The Forum's new chairman, Business NZ's Simon
Carlaw, says the Forum will soon release the Forum's list of
'hot' and 'cold' councils so business ratepayers can see
which councils are the big spenders - he says a large North
Island council leads the list of shame... CALLING ALL
TRAINING MANAGERS Business NZ seeks to facilitate a
training managers' network, with the aim of helping to
improve skill development across the workforce, sharing
information and providing input into policy. It will operate
as an electronic network, though an initial meeting is
proposed at Business NZ's office in Wellington at 10 am on
Wednesday 3 March. If you would like to be involved,
contact jbaker@businessnz.org.nz
PITY THE PAY CLERK
Payroll company Comacc is sounding a warning about the
"enormous workload" posed by new Holidays Act which comes
into force on 1 April. Comacc's Steve Nathan says:
"Employers will have to record specific details of each
leave day taken by employees and engage in complicated
formulae to determine accurate pay rates. Under the old
system, just noting that a day had been taken during a pay
period was enough. From April 1 we have to record specific
details and be able to track these details, plus calculate
holiday pay on a whole new basis...and the penalties for not
getting it right are significant." Contact
www.comacc.co.nz NEW CUSTOMS
RULE Reminder: New customs requirements for exporters come
into force soon. The current practice of allowing entries
to be lodged up to five days after the goods have left NZ
will cease. From 1 March Customs will not allow goods to be
loaded for export until an export entry has been lodged and
cleared. Information on how to lodge an entry
electronically is on www.customs.govt.nz
GROWTH STATS TRADE DEFICIT
FOR DECEMBER WORST ON RECORD * The provisional value of
exports for Dec was $2,287m; the provisional value for
imports was $2,806m, leaving the trade balance as a deficit
of $519m. Although Dec months typically record a deficit,
this was the largest for a Dec month since records began in
1960. * In comparison with Dec 2002, the value of exports
was 4.2% lower for Dec 2003, largely due to lower values for
logs & sawn timber, frozen fish fillets and crude oil. The
fall was partly offset by a rise in export values for beef
and whole milk powder and butter. * During the Dec 2003
year the value of exports was 8.6% less than for the Dec
2002 year, with a trade deficit of $3,413m or 12% of exports
- the second largest annual deficit as a percentage of
exports in the last ten years. SLIGHT INCREASE IN
UNEMPLOYED * Unemployment figures for Dec rose slightly,
according to the Household Labour Force Survey, up 0.2
percentage points to 4.6%. Despite the increase this is
still indicative of a very tight labour market. Much of the
increase occurred in Auckland (+3,300), though Northland
(7%) and Bay of Plenty (5.9%) still have the highest
percentage of unemployed. * Those not in the labour
force increased by 6,000, causing the labour force
participation rate to dip slightly to 66.5%. The number
of people in full-time work continued to rise (+7,000 or
0.5% over the quarter) and those in part-time work fell
6,000. * Numbers employed in the manufacturing sector
increased by 4,200 in the Dec quarter, but fell by 10,200
over the Dec year - the biggest fall of any sector over that
time. EARNINGS CONTINUE TO RISE * Average total
hourly earnings increased 0.9% to $19.83 in the Dec 2003
quarter. This follows a1.2% and 1.1% rise in the Sept and
June 2003 quarters. Over the Dec year total earnings rose
3.3%. * Earnings were up 0.7% (to reach $18.56) in the
private sector and 1.6% (to reach $24.67) in the public
sector. NET MIGRATION FALLING * Departures by New
Zealanders are picking up and arrivals from overseas are
falling. Although overall net migration is still high, we
are beginning to see a fall in net migration comparable to
the strong rise over the last two years. * While
permanent and long term arrivals exceeded departures by
1,600 during Dec, this was less than in both Dec 2001 and
2002. When looking at year-on-year comparisons, there was a
net gain of 34,900 for the Dec 2003 year, which was down
from 38,200 during the Dec 2002 year. * There were net
inflows from China (11,300), UK (10,100), India (4,900) and
Japan (2,200). * There were net outflows to Australia
(10,200), compared with 12,100 and 23,800 for the Dec 2002
and 2001 years. Statistics courtesy
www.stats.govt.nz WHAT'S NEW on www.businessnz.org.nz
http://www.businessnz.org.nz * Quick Guide to the
Employment Relations Law Reform Bill * Who's the victim,
Minister? * A simple decision for Mr Swain to make * A
message from small business * RMA amendments
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