ACT wants to freeze the minimum wage for three years, create a training wage set at 60% of the adult minimum wage for all workers under 20, shorten time limits for personal grievances and end the compulsory employer collection of union membership fees.
ACT small business spokesperson Laura McClure said the party was “committed to going further to cut costs placed upon businesses, and make it easier to comply with our regulatory settings."
"Laws designed to improve pay and conditions haven't done the job. Truly higher wages require businesses that can grow,” she said. “ACT's policies will grow productivity so people can genuinely take home more at the end of the week.”
- ACT's promise included a three year freeze on minimum wage increases, saying it had “outpaced productivity.”
- Set the training wage - which would be for workers under 20 for the first year of working for an employer - at 60% of the minimum wage.
- Allow protected employment exit negotiations “without triggering a personal grievance simply by starting the conversation.”
- Decrease the time limit for personal grievances, with a requirement for personal grievance proceedings to be lodged within three months of it being raised.
- End compulsory employer collection of union membership fees.
- Recognise modern digital investment as depreciable property the same as physical investment.
The current minimum wage is $23.95 an hour, with the starting out and training minimum wages at $19.16 an hour.
The starting out minimum age is for certain young employees under 20, and the training wage applies to worker over 20, usually for the likes of apprentices, both set at 80% of the minimum wage.
The latest Statistics NZ labour market figures show the underutilisation rate for 15 to 24-year-olds rose to 37% from 34% in the 12 months to June, with the number of underutilised people in this age group rising 21,600 annually to 180,200.
The largest increase in underutilisation for this group came from unemployment, up 12,200. The underutilisation rate measures the untapped capacity in the labour market.
ACT leader talks minimum wage and NEETs
Asked if ACT could guarantee that this policy would reduce the number of young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEETs), party leader David Seymour told reporters at Wellington's Tākina convention centre: "There is no question. If you create another opportunity for people who are not in employment, education and training to work, more people will work."
"How many people will take advantage of this policy to employ more young people and give them a chance? That is impossible to know, but it will be better than we are now," Seymour said.
Asked how confident ACT was about its policy (which it also proposed in 2023) getting through in any potential future coalition agreement, Seymour said they had been consistent.
"The ACT Party can be accused of many things but we've never been accused of inconsistency."
If people looked at what ACT's Brooke van Velden, as Minister Workplace Relations and Safety, had delivered, there had been much smaller increases in the minimum wage than the previous government, he said.
"So we have done a really good job of containing those increases to be fair to business. I believe that we can go further and so we put out this policy again. Last time it got us minimal increases, this time I suspect it might get us zero increases."
On the cost of living crisis and people on minimum wage, Seymour said: "There's no question that we have a challenge with the cost of living but people on minimum wage are not the people you think they are."
"They're not people who are head of household, and the very few who are - less than 10% - those people are getting tax credits to help them with the cost of living crisis."
"If I wanted to help the most hard-up New Zealanders, based on the numbers, the last thing I would do is increase the minimum wage. It puts cost right through business, but it doesn't actually direct the help to the people who have the most problems with the cost of living crisis," he said.
Asked what he would say to people who were hoping to get a bump in their minimum wage, Seymour said you can't pass a law to become wealthy.
"You can only invest and innovate. The law is there to create the opportunity to have a go. But higher wages can't come from the Government just legislating up ... We tried legislating up wages under the Labour government. All we got was inflation."
Additional reporting by Mandy Te
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