Letter No.78
11 May, 1998

26 April 1998

Prime Minister Jenny Shipley calls for further downsizing of the public service. She suggests amalgamations whichcould see the number of government departments reduced from 38 to as few as 15. As well as clustering smaller departments, she is looking at grouping the large social policy departments of Social Welfare, Health, Housing and Education. The public service currently has about 30,000 employees, which is half the number it had in 1989.

Labour leader Helen Clark supports the pause in tariff reductions, and calls for a five-year freeze, starting in 2000.

Professor David Giles, formerly with the taxation economics group of the Inland Revenue Dept, estimates the underground economy in NZ to be worth about 11% of the official GDP.

Unemployment looks to be the biggest issue in Germany's election campaign. Social Democrat leader Gerhard Schroder promises the benchmark of his government would be the battle against Germany's five million jobless.

27 April 1998

Social Welfare minister Roger Sowry announces a further trialing of a voluntary service called Family Start. The scheme provides "family workers" who visit at-risk parents of newborn babies. The aim is to help with parenting skills, money management and gaining appropriate state assistance. Health professionals will identify the at-risk parents. The trial aims at "intervening" in 850 at-risk families, and will begin in in Whangarei, West Auckland, Rotorua and Christchurch.

28 April 1998

Nissan confirms it will close its Wiri car assembly plant in October. Managing director Toyo Masuda says the removal of tariffs means it is no longer viable to assemble cars in NZ.

29 April 1998

Australian workers on federal awards have been granted a $A14 pay rise. This takes the wages of the lowest paid workers to a minimum of $A374 per week.

1 May 1998

Thousands of people in NZ towns and cities participate in May Day marches. The focus for this annual celebration of worker solidarity was protests against tariff reductions.

The traditional May 1998 Day conference at Blackball's Hilton Hotel on the West Coast attracted a large attendance with presentations from the Blackball Roving Players, Sue Bradford from the Auckland Unemployed Workers Rights Centre, and MP Phillida Bunkle.

Up to 300 forestry jobs are lost as Fletcher Challenge Forests terminates deals with 28 contractors round Rotorua.

Toyota car assembly staff in Thames are finally told their plant will close in October with the loss of all 260 jobs.

2 May 1998

The Taranaki-King Country byelection results in National retaining the seat.

3 May 1998

Trade unions and high school principals in Hamilton voice their concerns that senior students are not obtaining their potential at school because their efforts are being diverted from their schoolwork by their part-time jobs.

Hundreds of BP service station staff receive redundancy notices. BP says most staff would be rehired but more would become temporary and casual staff.

4 May 1998

Media Budget Speculation: the higher paid sickness and invalids benefits will be frozen at present levels. In contrast the unemployment benefit will continue to be given annual cost of living increases until it reaches the same level.

5 May 1998

The anti-benefit fraud campaign that Income Support Service is using on television and radio has resulted in complaints to both the Race Relations Conciliator's office and the Broadcasting Standard's Authority. Neither has passed judgements.

The amalgamation of the four Regional Health Authorities to the single Health Funding Authority results in 165 job losses to administrative staff. The $20m savings will go into other health services.

The Ministry of Education releases figures showing a large disparity between the results achieved by Maori and Pakeha high school students. Last year about twice as many Maori as Pakeha students did not pass school certificate and seventh form bursary tests. Also, nearly half of the suspensions were Maori students, while they made up only 20% of the student population.

Maori marchers protesting the Multilateral Agreement on Investment arrive at Parliament. Following Whina Cooper's 1975 land rights march route, protesters of the MAI began walking from the Far North on April 13th.

6 May 1998

Household Labour Force employment statistics are released today. NZ's unemployment rate is now 7.1%.

The Manukau City Council appears likely to provide $30,000 towards a $1.6m scheme to improve the work prospects of the 1,000 teenagers in their region who leave school each year without qualifications.

Media Budget Speculation (2): University student fees will rise. Students who do not receive a student allowance will no longer be eligible for the emergency unemployment benefit over the summer recess.

Consulting group KMPG's Andrew Dinsdale points to the banking industry continuing to close bank branches and shed staff this year. ANZ alone is closing 20 more branches and may drop as many as 400 staff. ANZ and the BNZ are both shifting their corporate headquarters from Wellington to Auckland. These moves will affect 1,400 staff.

7 May 1998

The Fire Service announces all 1,575 frontline staff will be made redundant from July 1st. Existing staff are invited to apply for about 1,475 re-described jobs.

Maori Affairs minister Tau Henare tells parliament that the 18.3% Maori unemployment rate is disgustingly high. Opposition MPs point out that the Maori unemployment rate had increased 33% since Henare took office.

Danish Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen introduces legislation intending to end a ten-day private sector strike in Denmark. Workers are seeking a sixth week of annual holidays.

Farmers in drought stricken hawkes Bay, Marlborough and Canterbury are given assistance by government. The funding will establish a drought relief office as well as providing income support for farmers without cash so they won't have to sell stock in order to buy groceries.

8 May 1998

Australian waterside workers return to work in Sydney and Melbourne, after a lengthy and bitter strike against waterfront restructuring.