The stoush between Ports of Auckland and the Maritime union appears to be heating up. Len Brown has at last showed up and planted himself down firmly on the side of PoAL, which is as it should be. It would have been utterly bizarre for the Mayor to side with the union against a business [...]

Now here is a very bad idea. Only students doing courses that benefit the economy should receive interest-free loans, according to a suggestion from a leading accountancy group. The idea in KPMG’s Agribusiness Agenda 2011 was prompted by “long-term decline” of graduates entering agriculture. While I have sympathy for the agribusiness sector, because it is [...]

The Myth of the Evil Employer Last Sunday Helen Kelly launched into a revealing diatribe about employee/employer relationships: Council of Trade Unions head Helen Kelly has accused the National government of trying to instil an attitude in which employers should be treated with deference and workers simply grateful to have jobs. Speaking to the Labour [...]

It really was a bumper day for left-wing whining today. The 90-day probation was extended to all businesses, the minimum wage went up to $13.00 ph and ACC re-introduced experience rating. All favorite left-wing bug-bears. The Herald shamelessly published a horribly slanted article on the 90-day trail with Helen Kelly in full cry, accusing National of [...]

The Dom Post has run a series of articles on New Zealand doctors earning up to $8000 a weekend doing locum work in Australia. The MacDoctor is uncertain why this might be considered news as this practice has been going on for years. The take on the articles is that the doctors in question might [...]

I see there is much left-wing hoo-ha around John Key’s remarks to the effect that most people seem to manage on the dole and that some of those who need supplementary food parcels from people like the Salvation Army are simply poor budgeters. So far he has been called “heartless”, “out of touch” and “mean”. [...]

Many specialists in New Zealand work part-time in the public health system and part-time in their own private practice. They do not generally do this to make extra money because there is usually more than enough work for a specialist working full-time in private practice. Specialists work in public hospitals for several reasons. Complex surgery [...]

I see that Grey District mayor, Tony Kokshoorn, is pleading that Pike River be turned into an open cast mine. Surely a mining engineer has told him that this is impossible – at least, it is impossible according to many of the commentators who shouted down my post about the real cause of the Pike [...]

You can tell that there is not much political news around at the moment. The newspapers start to print press releases from Labour politicians who are simply flapping their lips and saying nothing new. David Cunliffe kicks off with an entirely pointless football simile and then castigates National for “shrinking the size of government”. Ah, [...]

Every year that public holidays fall on the weekend, the media make much of people charging a surcharge on some, or usually all, of the holiday. This is a direct result of the Holidays Act of 2003 which requires all workers on public holidays to be paid time and a half and get a days [...]