Employer told to ’try dole’

Press, 7 November 1978, Page 10

Employer told to ’try dole’

PA Auckland, The Auckland Trades! Council employment officer I Mr D. Slater has chai-' lenged the executive director of the Employers’ Federation (Mr J. W. Rowe) to get by on the dole. Earlier last week Mr Rowe said that, the unemployment benefit for young people was too high and not an incentive to work. Mr SJater said: “What a lot of rot — the way he talks you would think the kids are turning up for their benefit in chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royces. “School-leavers aged 15 and 16 do not get any benefit and are expected to live off their parents. How does Mr Rowe expect parents to support, say, three or four children when there are very few two-income families and many are just getting by on the dole?

; “I would like to see Mr | Rowe itemise how he would live on $7B a week and then Iwe will tax the benefit and see how he gets on.”

Mr Slater said it was “ail very well for employers to criticise unemployed when they were getting a $l5OO tax dodge for every unemployed person they took on.”

The $l5OO tax deduction was monitored only by the employer, Mr Slater said.

Mr Rowe’s remarks were similar to Mr Muldoon’s attacks on the unemployed at his Mount Albert meeting last Thursday evening, Mr Slater said.

"They are negative statements that create a rift between the employed and the unemployed and they serve only to drive the unemployed further back into their shells”.