Govt missed opportunity over sick leave cover

THE leaders’ debate was an opportunity for us to decide whether Jacinda Ardern is our Joan of Arc or was our Florence Nightingale.

So it seemed surprising that the strategic value of Labour’s policy of doubling the sick leave entitlement, announced the day before, did not make it into the debate from either side.

The reality is that the 130,000plus small businesses (employing 119 staff) which survived the first impact of the Covid19 lockdown were forced to downsize staff levels just to survive. Consequently they no longer have the staff levels available to provide the cover for additional leave. So how does the policy work in practice?

As an extension of the Covid19 recovery programme we might have expected a governmentfunded wage subsidy to enable extra leavecover staff to be employed. This would be redirected from the dole budget and the increased employment would be an economic stimulus while providing staff with adequate sick leave in the Covid19 circumstances. An allround ‘‘winwinwin’’ for the team of five million.

The polls tell us that Jacinda will sleepwalk her way back in, but failing to think this policy right through would indicate Labour is not yet ready to take off the training wheels and will need the wise old head of Winston as the deputy at least one more term. That Judith Collins let that one go through to the wicket keeper has probably ended her innings. Out for a duck.

Tony Collins

Dalmore

ACCORDING to political reporter Mike Houlahan, Act leader David Seymour ‘‘clearly received the most enthusiastic response’’ at the recent debate in Queenstown (ODT, 26.9.20).

I just don’t understand how anyone would contemplate voting for Act. The current living wage is $22.10. This is the amount deemed to be the minimum income necessary to provide workers and their families with the basic necessities of life. Less than the living wage is the minimum wage of $18.90 and this is the amount that is currently paid to many of our essential workers. The Act policy is to drop the minimum wage to $17.10 and then freeze it for three years.

Act wants to reduce further the ability of our essential workers to participate in society. They are looking to ride to economic prosperity on the backs of the very people who sustained us through lockdown. It’s poor form. Peter McCall Andersons Bay

THE proposal by the National and Act parties to privatise and expand New Zealand’s quarantine facilities is unwise. The unavoidable problem with private companies running such facilities is that they have no ‘‘skin in the game’’, as per the book of that name by N. N. Taleb.

A private provider would benefit by making a profit out of the enterprise, indeed likely cutting costs as much as possible to maximise that profit, but they would not similarly share in the costs of any failures. The rest of us would pay for that, and not just financially. If they were willing to bear the full expense of dealing with any escape of people or the virus, the idea might bear consideration, but they would never do that. That just isn’t the business model.

The Government, on the other hand, very much has skin in the game. It benefits from a job well done, but it bears all the consequences of a failure. I far more trust government agencies in an enterprise like this than a private company, whatever advantages the latter is purported to have otherwise. Conrad Dobrowolski

Oamaru