‘One in three on lowest income unemployed’

Press, 9 May 1983, Page 2

‘One in three on lowest income unemployed’

Parliamentary reporter People on the lowest incomes were also those with the highest rates of unemployment, said Mrs Ann Hercus (Lqb. Lyttelton) in Parliament. One in three of those people in the lowest income brackets were unemployed. In the highest income group only three in every 100 were without a job.

Mrs Hercus said it was a mistake to tighten domestic purposes benefit criteria. Half of solo parents were not on this benefit and only a tiny handful tried to “beat the system.” Supplementary minimum prices or export incentives were handouts that did deserve “a whack.”

Mrs Mary Batchelor (Lab., Avon) said that the bottom 20 per cent of wage earners was two-thirds made up of women, more than half of whom were married, and their tax had increased.

In contrast, the top 20 per cent of wage earners were men in more than nine out of 10 cases, and their tax had decreased. “If a woman is rich and married, she gets an increase in real income. Those who work because they have to are penalised by the Government.” Mr P. R. Burdon (Nat., Fendalton), said that the bottom 20 per cent had lost in comparison with the higher income earner, but those in the bottom 20 per cent were second, third or fourth income earners in a household.

The Government’s aim had been to lower the tax of a single income earner supporting a household, and raise it where the family had a multiple income. Households were 5.4 per cent better off.

Latest figures showed that for the last two quarters of the freeze the wage earner was 3 per cent ahead of rises in the cost of living. The Labour Party had failed to give a better wages and prices policy, and had not dissociated itself from the Federation of Labour call for a $2O a week wage rise and a 43 per cent increase for engineers. Technology talks

r D. F. Caygill (Lab., St Albans), said that the freezing works talks on new technology had broken down after two years of negotiations. The parties should be urged by the Government to come back and keep “plugging away” so that the two years of work they had put in was not in vain.

“But there is not a thing. I think they neither care nor know what is going on. The only intervention we have had has been from the Prime Minister, saying that the unions could forget about a forty-day working week.”

Stock rates Mr D. L. Kidd (Nat., Marlborough) said that Labour had tried to remove concessional Cook Strait rates for stock.

The South Island drought would have killed low-condi-tion stock this year if the concessional rates had not allowed transport north for fattening, he said. Otherwise, the stock would have been sold for much lower prices in the South Island. This would have been bad for the South Island and especially bad for Blenheim. Mr Kidd said he came down firmly on the side of a policeman when he was faced with a dangerous man carrying a weapon. People offending with firearms must expect to be pursued by armed police, and wounded or even killed if they made a false move at the point of apprehension, he said. %

However police procedures should be kept under public review.

‘Reform needed’

Mr G. W. R. Palmer (Lab., Christchurch Central) said the House needed reform. The set-piece Ad-dress-in-Reply debate allowed the Government “off the hook” too easily, because it was a long meandering debate in which every speaker spoke on the topic of his choice. The Government’s policies were not subject to scrutiny. The second set-piece debate, the Budget debate, was similar. One or both of them should be limited in time. Parliament should sit throughout the year, and

select committees should sit throughout the country more, he said.

‘Adverse trend’

Sir Basil Arthur (Lab., Timaru), said that the Government had changed the thrust of its regional development aid so that development councils now had to give priority to projects linked to “think big” ventures in the region. This was a “very adverse” trend. The Government was continuing regional development aid only because it would be political suicide to drop it all together. Cost of fuel Mr W. E. Rowling (Lab., Tasman) said that the Government said Motonui synthetic petrol would meet one-tfiird of motoring needs in 1985-86, but was not willing to disclose the cost of fuel to the motorist. “We heard much about the economics of the plan when oil prices were escalating, but we have heard very little about it since prices stablised,” he said. On tax laws, Mr Rowling asked how the Wellington property owner, Mr Bob Jones, could declare in 6¥z months — $1.5 million profit, and pay only $72,000 in tax.

“The big boys in business were given six months to reorganise to escape tax shelter abolition legislation,” Mr Rowling said. “They managed to establish public companies to carry on their work in a different guise.” “Meanwhile the little person at the bottom of the financial heap is getting kicked to bits, and slammed into a wage freeze strait jacket,” he said. Mr Rowling said that the increased share of the overseas market gained by the New Zealand aluminium industry was a result less of its increased production, than of contraction in the aluminium industry in Italy and Japan.