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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

LIBERTARIANZ PARTY

Nelson wharfies show up Wilson

Margaret Wilson waded into the Nelson wharfie’s strike by saying that her job was to safe-guard everyone’s ‘rights’ on the issue, i.e.; the locals ‘right to a job’ and ‘right to fair pay and conditions’ "What nonsense!" says Libertarianz Spokesman Russell Watkins.

"That the Attorney-General does not understand rights is worrying," he says, "but unfortunately not surprising. The single question added to the above ‘rights’ would make the issue of rights clear: ‘At whose expense?’"

"Carter Holt Harvey’s logs, and the profit made from those logs, belongs to them; it is their right to own them and it is their right to employ whom they want to employ," says Watkins. "It is for them to decide what the pay and conditions shall be. Potential employees of Carter Holt Harvey have the right to choose: it is for them to decide whether those proffered conditions are acceptable or not, and to work on that basis. Carter Holt Harvey has no ‘right’ to force people to work, the union has no ‘right’ to force people not to work. There is nothing for the Attorney-General to ‘balance’."

There is in fact no such a thing as ‘a right to a job’ since that right would be at the expense of one who must provide that job. There is only the right of free trade, that is: a man’s right to take a job if another man chooses to hire him. There are no ‘rights to a fair wage or a fair price’ if no one chooses to pay it, to hire a man or to buy his product.

"Rights do not mean the ‘right’ to force unchosen obligations on anyone else," concludes Watkins. "The sooner the Attorney-General understands that, the better."

ENDS

For more information contact:

Russell Watkins

LIBERTARIANZ SPOKESMAN

Phone: (07) 543 3136

Kaimai, Tauranga

Or contact the Libertarianz Media Coordinator on (025) 861 927, organon@ihug.co.nz

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