Public patience with no-jobs government wearing thin
 
The government’s lack of any plan for jobs has been laid bare this morning, FIRST Union said today.
 
A Fairfax poll out this morning listed job creation and unemployment as the top issue facing the country.
 
Unemployment is at a record high of 7.3 per cent, or 175,000 people, and the public are tiring of the government’s weak response of leaving it to the market, FIRST Union General Secretary Robert Reid said.
 
“National’s approach of sitting back and hoping for the best and has failed New Zealand firms and workers,” he said.
 
“Governments do have options.” 
 
“Better use of government procurement to support local jobs, temporary Job Support Schemes like those used at the peak of the recession brought back for sectors facing significant redundancies, and a more responsive approach to monetary policy to protect jobs in the export sector would all help.”
 
“Making sure that its citizens have access to decent work and an income is a basic duty of any government.”
 
“Instead, our government is asleep at the wheel on jobs,” Robert Reid said.

ENDS

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Gordon Campbell: On Failures Of Care For Those With Mental Disabilities

Hard to imagine a more disturbing insight into the treatment of the vulnerable than the Health Ministry report on Te Roopu Taurima o Manukau. The Ministry has found that the country’s only kaupapa Maori intellectual disability residential care provider has been “seriously dysfunctional.”

The ministry says the business has failed to recruit and retain quality staff – and says the kaimahi (caregivers) that have been employed are seriously unsuitable for the job, lacking basic knowledge. But Te Roopu Taurima o Manukau doesn’t get all the blame. The report says there’s a significant gap under disability laws to ensure there’s oversight by qualified clinical professionals. More>>