Labour Launches Attack on Small Businesses – ACT

ACT New Zealand’s Labour spokesman Chris Simmons today slammed the Labour Party’s new ‘Work and Wages’ policy, labelling it an unprecedented attack on New Zealand’s small business sector.

“Labour’s plans for raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, a return to the archaic award system, and the abolishment of the 90-day trial period will do nothing but increase costs for employers and put more workers out of jobs,” Mr Simmons said.

“We can already see so many empty shops in our towns and cities around New Zealand. At a time small businesses are hurting, Labour wants to well and truly put small business owners out of their misery.

“Unemployment will go up not because businesses have one or two spare staff to lay-off. It will go up because businesses will fail outright. Most small businesses have lean profit margins; squeeze them too hard, as Labour plans to do, and they will have to shut up shop.

“The costs grow larger still: in many medium-sized businesses the minimum-wage worker is being supervised by a staff member who is most likely currently earning around $15 an hour. When the minimum wage goes up, the shift co-ordinator’s wage must also go up.”

Mr Simmons also dismissed Labour’s proposal to Mondayise public holidays as yet another costly bribe.

“We have never recovered from the productivity hit of giving every person four weeks leave. To Mondayise public holidays will further reduce the country’s overall productivity and directly hit the bottom-line of every small business in the country.”

Self-employed for 18 years, Mr Simmons strongly suspects that Labour’s policy was devised by “people who have never employed a person in their careers; have never been responsible for covering a payroll; have never had their family home on the line.”

“Small business owners are already looking at the return they get for being an entrepreneur and asking themselves ‘why bother?’ It is easier just to let someone else take the risk and move their families and their skills to Australia and start again.

“This sort of craziness is exactly why government should never try dictating how people run their business. ACT policies will let New Zealanders get on with their lives and cut the bureaucracy that holds back employers and employees alike,” Mr Simmons said.

ENDS

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