Mallard admits Labour is completely incompetent

Hattip: NZ Herald

Some experts have said that total remuneration is fair. However, Mr Mallard said the Government didn't expect to see differences in take-home pay.

So Labour didn't even look across as far as Australia when designing KiwiSaver?
I guess we have seen this before when they have made bold statements that they think they are doing a good job - but sorry this is the height of incompetence and ignorance to which Mallard is admitting.

Also I hope he doesn't believe his line that the Government is reimbursing employers fully for the contribution? I know I predicted that would be the Government line when they put in the phased approach such that before the election the employer contribution had only reached 1% and the tax kickback would match that. But unfortunately despite what Labour thinks of employers we actually do plan to retain our employees for as long as possible and so we do have to think of the 2% next year, the 3% the following year et al.

Just because Labour is too stupid to look ahead and read consequences doesn't mean everyone else is.

Inflation

Sparc has over 55% of its staff earning over $100 K.
Average Public sector wages are now 130 % of Private sector.

Inflation is imported and the fault of the Reserve Bank? Yeah Right.

So was the truckers protest in violation of the EFA?

Just out of contrariness this morning I'd like to know whether the truckers were in contravention of the EFA? Especially given the number of explicitly anti-Annette King banners that were hanging off various rigs et al; and the number of references from the various spokespeople towards the upcoming election; one would find it hard not to draw the conclusion that they were attempting to influence general opinion against the kinds of party that would tax without warning...

And I certainly didn't see any references to authorised financial agents - but I'll bet running that many trucks about wasn't especially cheap in terms of spending thresholds either? (By definition given what the protest was about).


However on the point of the object of the protest itself: Even worse than Labour's willingness to arbitrarily raise the Road User Charges without warning - has to have been their absolute lack of comprehension as to why they were being challenged over it. Their blustering on about it needing to be done etc shows a complete disconnect from what people were saying - especially about the lack of warning. And of course Annette Kings attempts to obfuscate by asking whether people wanted less roads and maintenance: sorry honey you can leave the road user charges where they are and still give us the same amount of roads and maintenance. But that's not a point that any Labour minister seems to get now is it?

And as an (unfortunate) answer to her rhetorical question she should look at the results from the transit survey in Auckland regarding bringing forward the Western ring road through tolls; the answer to that was (again unfortunately) a resounding NO - and that was when people were feeling a whole lot more secure in their jobs and interest and inflation hadn't yet started to bite. But again - since when does what the public want actually matter to Labour?