Greece no excuse for wage gap with Oz

new-zealand-labour-party

Thu May 17 2012 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)

Greece no excuse for wage gap with Oz

Thursday, 17 May 2012, 4:30 pm
Press Release: New Zealand Labour Party

David Parker
Finance Spokesperson

17 May 2012

Greece no excuse for wage gap with Oz

Every month the weekly earnings gap with Australia is growing a dollar wider, Labour's Finance spokesperson David Parker says.

“New average weekly earnings figures released in Australia today show weekly wages there grew by another $3.10 a week more than average weekly pay here.

“The weekly wage gap with Australia has grown by $2216 a week since John Key has been Prime Minister, from $122.52 a week in September 2008, to $143.92 today ($865.11 in NZ, March 2012, $1009.03 in Australia, Feb 2012.*).

"Wages in New Zealand are not growing," David Parker says.

"They can't blame Greece for this.

"Closing the wage gap with Australia was a cornerstone of National's 2008 election promise. The Government has stopped talking about it and won't even provide a milestone date by which the wage gap will be back to where it was when they took office. Once again they are failing by even their own measures.

"Next week's Budget will have nothing to grow our economy and nothing to grow wages.

"That's why families are noticing their household budgets are stretched and it's why a record thousand people are week are getting on the plane to Australia,” David Parker said.

* Source for figures: Stats NZ Quarterly Earnings Survey. Australian Bureau of Statistics Average Weekly Earnings. OECD PPP and Exchange Rates.

ENDS

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