Point of Order: Unions press ahead to win “fair pay” agreements.....

......But what if they add to inflationary pressure?

One of NZ’s leading economists Cameron Bagrie told the TV3 AM show on Tuesday the increase in wages in NZ is a “success” but we are getting to a point of too much success.

His warning came as the Dominion-Post reported what it called “an avalanche” of fair pay applications are expected to be made over the next few months as unions gather momentum to launch bids for better pay for workers under the new fair pay agreement law.

Roger Partridge: Let the FPA battles begin

Businesses should brace for next week’s return of the Government’s Fair Pay Agreements Bill. The Bill had its first reading in April. It then faced a battering from business groups before the Select Committee in June.

But the smart money is on the Bill returning to parliament largely unchanged. With Labour desperate to deliver on a key 2017 election promise, the Bill looks set to pass into law before Christmas.

Dr Bryce Wilkinson: The false statistical justifications for unfair pay non-agreements

When Ministers appear before a Parliamentary Select Committee we do not expect them to make false assertions about factual matters.

That is why we were shocked by what the Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety told the Employment and Workforce Select Committee last month.

He told it that he “entirely disagreed” with the main facts in our submissions on the Fair Pay Agreements Bill. He even asserted that our statistics were “at odds with virtually every credible organisation”.

Since our statistics were solely from official sources, he essentially asserted that Statistics New Zealand and the OECD are not credible.