Bradford Sue: General Debate 
Bradford Sue: General Debate 
[Volume:652;Page:1409] 
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 Next week the Government hosts one of the key components of its celebrated rolling maul—the employment summit. Not being on the guest list for this illustrious occasion the Green Party awaits the results with interest. I am truly hopeful that it will not be a repeat of the mid-1980s predecessor where a large number of people assembled for a very similar job summit and did a lot of talking but from which very little eventuated apart from the then Labour Government’s going on to enact policies that saw the loss of many tens of thousands of jobs. 
Unemployment is already rising. We hear of more closures and potential closures every day—sadly. During the financial review of the Ministry of Social Development at the Social Services Committee this morning the chief executive Peter Hughes said that his ministry is looking ahead to there being 60000 people on the unemployment benefit—currently the figure is about 34000—although he said the figure may rise to 100000 and that “it is a very difficult situation.” The household labour force survey number our international comparator has already gone up to 105000. 
In this context it has therefore been quite dispiriting to read in the media over the last couple of days about Government plans to trim numbers across a range of departments. Mentioned so far are the Tertiary Education Commission the Ministry for the Environment the Department of Conservation the National Library and of course the Ministry of Social Development itself. There are deep ironies indeed in the Prime Minister saying when he launched the employment summit: “My Government is determined to show decisive leadership to protect New Zealanders’ jobs as we head into tougher economic times.” when at the same time the pressure is on across much of the Public Service it appears to reduce staff numbers. By how much and in what areas is of course the big question. Mr Key should understand that keeping people off the dole is not just about new jobs; it is also about retaining existing ones. 
When I questioned Mr Hughes this morning about the impact of the proposed cuts to Ministry of Social Development staff numbers—the very ministry that has to deal front-on with the rising numbers of those who are losing their jobs—he assured the select committee that in fact most positions would be lost through attrition. That is great; however this was only in relation to a possible 5 percent decline in the ministry’s job numbers not the 10 percent that has also been mooted. The Green Party hopes that the National leadership in its new-found concern for the unemployed and for those who are about to become so will revise the slash-and-burn approach it is bringing to the State sector and mount a much more constructive response in the weeks ahead. 
I turn briefly now to another high-risk area for unemployment; the difficulties in which Fisher and Paykel Appliances currently finds itself have highlighted another pressure point in the economy. The Green Party finds it interesting that—so far anyway—it is only ACT that stands right outside any need to consider the possibility that in the times ahead the Government may have a role to play in helping at least some parts of our manufacturing and productive sector to survive. From a Green Party perspective whether Fisher and Paykel Appliances—or any other company for that matter—should get taxpayer help remains an open question but we would like to offer some criteria that we think should apply before any company at all gets taxpayer assistance. 
For example we believe that help should be considered only when a company closure will result in substantial job losses and will have a significant broader downstream economic impact as well. Any help should be in the form of an equity stake with director powers attached not through soft loans and suchlike. Government shareholding should also be conditional on caps being set on chief executives’ and directors’ fees on jobs being kept in New Zealand and not taken offshore and on minimum protections and help with training or retraining being offered and set in place for all staff. Without conditions like these New Zealand risks repeating the mistakes seen in the United States where the first round of massive bail-outs mostly ended up in the pockets of those who caused the crisis in the first place rather than helping to keep or create jobs. 
Sadly our country is only just beginning to see the impacts of what is coming at us. It is imperative that the Government takes the unemployment crisis seriously on all fronts not just on some of them. I certainly hope that next week’s employment summit will result in ongoing and useful activity and will not go down in history as just another failed public relations exercise.