22 August 2005

Beware the stranger bearing gifts

NZNO is urging caution as middle income earners assess National’s proposed tax cuts.

“After every round of across the board tax cuts income inequality has worsened, the health of the poor has worsened, and funding for public health services has fallen” says NZNO President, Jane O’Malley.

“National’s tax cuts are not being proposed in a vacuum. They have promised to slow down health spending increases dramatically and that means that services will be cut. What good will it do for a nurse to be offered a tax bribe one week and a redundancy notice the next?”

NZNO says it is important to look at all of National’s policies, not just tax.

“Our members have won pay rises of more than $160 a week in most cases by using their collective bargaining rights under the Employment Relations Act. National will get rid of those rights and force us back to bargaining with individual District Health Boards for the crumbs.”

“Our lowest paid caregivers in private aged care hospitals don’t want the $400 a year that National is offering them in 2006. They want the $300 a week that is what they stand to gain by using the Employment Relations Act to win pay parity with public sector caregivers.”

ENDS

© Scoop Media