Free Press. Tete-a-tete
Free Press. Tete-a-tete
ACT’s regular bulletin
Tete-a-tete
This weekend Jacinda Ardern argued for
the government, or an agency of Government, to set wages for
whole industries. This is the proposal associated with the
Kristine Bartlett vs. TerraNova case, where the Employment
Court found that ‘pay equity’ can mean wages in one
industry being set by comparison to another industry.
Why Not?
As David Seymour argues in
his reply, if there was discrimination going on based on
gender, where employers were actively thinking women should
be paid less, we’d be the first to oppose it. Women do
get paid less than men, but when you allow for a range of
different choices that individuals make, such as on hours,
danger, and subject choices, the gap all but disappears.
The big remaining difference comes back to gender roles in
bringing up children, where the culture is changing but
there is otherwise little Government can
do.
Madness
As expert employment
lawyer Peter Cullen has said “Bartlett’s case is
therefore somewhat of a step back to the days when union
power and centralised wage fixing were supreme.” It
echoes the United Nations’ International Labour
Organisation, which has said aircraft cabin crew get paid
less than pilots because they are mainly women and pilots
are mainly men. It has taken a long time to get a free
labour market, we don’t want to start going backwards.
Prices and Information
ACT opposes
all government price setting because we know prices are not
just costs to be paid, they contain information.
Information about what consumers are willing to pay, what
producers are willing to sell for. In short, prices reflect
human desire, and government price controls override
people’s choices.
Poets and
Accountants
If you want to be a poet that’s
great, but you may find most people prefer to spend money on
things other than your poetry. Some people think being an
accountant is less romantic than writing poetry, but people
will pay you a lot more for it. When Government overrides
these price signals, it is overriding people’s desires
leading to shortages of things people want and excesses of
thing they don’t.
Government Must
Act
The Government cannot let the court case
stand. If it doesn’t legislate then the court will take
us back to the collectivist days described by Peter Cullen,
so what to do? No doubt the Government will be reluctant to
be seen as anti-women, and that’s how the political left
will paint it if it legislates over the TerraNova case, but
the principle of a free labour market should not be
abandoned lightly.
A Way
Out?
There is an argument in cases such as
TerraNova that the problem is really discrimination after
all, it is the fact that there’s only one employer in the
market and that’s the government (health and education
tend to be dominated by women and by government). If the
government isn’t being a good employer, what to do? If
the government does legislate it should ensure that
sector-to-sector pay equity comparisons only apply when
government is the employer.
Signing
Out
Free Press readers can be assured
there will be no more identity politics for a while, we
believe in a free society where all people are equal before
the law. However, with the TerraNova case, the Chiefs
stripper scandal, deadbeat dads, and the like, it seems New
Zealand politics has not finished with gender as an
issue.
Where are Winston’s List
MPs?
Free Press enjoys Jamie MacKay’s
Farming Show on Newstalk ZB. Regular guest Don Nicolson
will say favourable things about ACT without being paid.
Fascinatingly, another regular guest is David Broome –
Winston Peters’ taxpayer-funded chief of staff. Convention
is for such staffers to work behind the scenes on
Parliamentary duties, but New Zealand First have essentially
used taxpayer funding to give themselves an extra
spokesperson. Why can’t Winston send one of his 10 list
MPs to fill the slot? Doesn’t he trust his Primary
Industries spokesman, Richard
Prosser?
Highlights from the
House
Free Press readers may want a
summary of what’s happening in Wellington – Highlights
from the House is a semi-regular update on David Seymour’s
speeches in the House and media statements. You can read the latest edition
here.
ends