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.