Simon Power National Industrial Relations Spokesperson

13 November 2001

Govt continues to shackle business

The Labour-Alliance Government's bid to promote itself as business friendly is failing miserably, says National's Industrial Relations spokesperson Simon Power.

"In the last two weeks it has piled more pieces of reform on to a long list of legislation which is already shackling employers. Along with draconian health and safety laws, we've now got a selective parental leave scheme, messy debate over union registration and a push for an extra week's annual leave.

"When you add to this the restless environment already created by the Employment Relations Act, and the changes to ACC earlier this year, employers are left struggling.

"Business needs certainty. It doesn't need crippling costs and crumbling confidence. All this does is undermine the two things business needs most - stability and low compliance costs.

"This Government has held itself up as business-friendly. But introducing one piece of detrimental legislation after another is hardly going to win the business community over," Simon Power said.

Ends

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>