Bryce Wilkinson: Policy point - faster trend labour productivity growth after the ECA 1991

The New Zealand Initiative rebuts the Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety’s claim to a select committee that New Zealand’s labour productivity growth rate since 1991 was 46% below that of Australia.

On figures recently supplied by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, the correct figure was 30%. A marginally more sophisticated trend analysis reported in the policy paper puts the difference at 23%.

In making these errors, the Minister sought to discredit the Employment Contracts Act 1991. He is trying to justify a return to trade-union-dominated wage negotiation regulations, as advocated by the CTU.