Difficulties predicted over job choices

Press, 24 April 1984, Page 19

Difficulties predicted over job choices

PA Wellington Harsh choices were likely to be made about who had the right to work if New Zealand did not create enough new jobs, the new chairman of the Human Rights Commission, Mr Justice Wallace, in Wellington has said. Addressing the 1984 Employers’ Federation convention, he said this might become one of the crucial areas of conflict and division in society. “Perhaps one answer may lie in creating job-sharing and better use of leisure time,” he said. “Beyond that, however, how can fair choices be made about who will be able to work and who will not? Indeed, choices about who shall work should never have to be made between, for example, young and old or married and single. “I, therefore, view growth as vital because it opens the prospect of a sufficiently large cake to be shared between, us all,” he said. Asked to speak about growth in a plural society, Mr Justice Wallace said that both unemployment, which had disproportionately affected women, and the growth in the crime rate had to be taken into account. “The extent to which unemployment and crime are linked is difficult to assess, though I think most of us

believe there is a real link,” he said. “It is significant, however, that there was not nearly so much crime in the bad Depression years of the late 1920 s and early 19305. “Be that as it may, there are no simple solutions to either our unemployment of our crime problems. That appears to be something people are more willing to concede in the area of unemployment than in crime,” he said. Anyone who hoped to see crime significantly reduced by higher penalties was doomed to disappointment. “I do not want to be misunderstood. I am not suggesting we abandon our system of criminal justice and criminal sanctions,” he said. “The best hope of reducing crime or combating unemployment lies in a longterm and patient attempts to create social justice in a multi-cultural society.” The future efforts of employers would be of tremendous importance. If they could successfully plan for growth in a plural society, they would take an enormous step towards curing social problems. “If, at the same time, you can also assist in ensuring the benefis of growth are fairly distributed throughout the community, you will further enhance the process.”

The task of ensuring a fair distribution of the benefits of growth was, of course, primarily the Government’s. But one way it had chosen to do that was through the equal opportunity legislation contained in both the Human Rights Commission and Race Relations Acts. Mr Justice Wallace also said that pursuing equal opportunities for minority groups and women made economic sense for employers. “The overwhelming experience here and overseas appears to be that where employers adopt policies aimed at equal opportunity, the employer benefits substantially,” he said. “It seems to me obviously to be so, to make economic sense. “The (Human Rights Commission) Act is about getting the best people and getting the best out of people,” he said. He commended the federation on its positive action policy for employment but said that he knew of no private employer who had applied to the commission under section 28 of the act to go further and adopt a special training programme. “There is no doubt that in almost all cases private employers have lagged well behind the State in taking steps to ensure that there is equal opportunity,” he said.