23 February, 2004

Fifty cents won't go far, says Bradford

The Green Party is welcoming a rise in the minimum wage but questioning why the increase is so small.

"An extra 50 cents an hour will give the lowest-paid people in society just $20 extra a week - and that's before tax," said Green Employment spokesperson, Sue Bradford. "$360 a week gross is nowhere near enough to meet average household spending.

"The Green Party totally supports the Council of Trade Unions and others who are calling on Government to immediately raise the minimum wage to $10 an hour.

"Raising the minimum wage makes sound economic sense. It means more spending on goods and services, which in turn means greater income for employers, increasing their capacity to cope with the wage rise itself, and also raising their potential to take on more staff in the long run.

"While we also applaud a rise in youth rates, we believe the Government should working to phase out rates that discriminate on the basis of age," Sue Bradford said.

"It is archaic and absurd that a 16-year-old checkout operator can earn $1.80 per hour less than an 18-year-old for doing exactly the same job."

ENDS

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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>>