On April 1, the government raised the minimum wage to $21.20. At the time, I thought it was an example of the progress you get under Labour. But there's a nasty twist:
Workplace Relations Minister Michael Wood wanted the Government to increase the minimum wage from $20 to $21.40, before Cabinet eventually worked him down to $21.20.As the article makes clear, Wood stood up for Labour's professed values, pushing for a larger increase to drag wages up across the board, while encouraging employers to invest in increasing productivity (which in theory increases wages even further). The fact that the rest of his party rejected this in favour of something less than even MBIE's "Goldilocks option" casts real doubt on whether Labour subscribes to those values. Instead, they just seem to be pushing NeoLiberalism and protecting the rotten status quo, rather than supporting the people who vote for them.A Cabinet paper shows officials from MBIE recommended an increase to $21- a real-terms pay cut for roughly 160,600 minimum wage workers, as the increase would have been lower than the rate of inflation. Wood overruled this in his advice to Cabinet, and pushed for a larger increase.
Officials also presented Cabinet with a compromise option, which was to increase the minimum wage in line with the four-year average of annual increases under the current Government.
This would have seen the minimum wage increase to $21.25. Instead, Cabinet opted to undershoot that and landed on an increase of $21.20.
