Joyce on Labour’s Road to Nowhere

Steven Joyce writes at NZ Herald:

The die is looking increasingly cast for this Government. In a range of crucial policy areas they have resolutely refused to change course in response to changed circumstances, despite people jumping up and down and telling them they are sailing on to the rocks. Now they are in the process of reaping the consequences of their intransigence. And at this late stage it seems there is precious little they can do about it.

The economy is a case in point. Grant Robertson’s refusal to alter his spending plans, his lack of interest in a more welcoming immigration policy to unstick the labour market, his failure to hold back his colleagues’ tsunami of increasing regulation, and his unwillingness to require discipline on government-mandated wage increases, have all contributed to a glum economic prognosis. He has sat on his hands blithely assuring everyone we are in good shape, and now can only watch as the Reserve Bank does what it must do to rein in runaway inflation.

Instead they have passed a law which will allow unions to demand industry wide national awards, so a small business in Invercargill has to pay the same as a multinational in Auckland.