Time to abandon tired old dogma

By Rod Oram

Between the lines


The Labour-Alliance coalition starts governing without the complete trust of business.

Two campaign issues gave form to business's unease that a centre-left government will undo the market economy: the left's pledge to reverse ACC reforms and to replace the Employment Contracts Act.

Unease turned to serious concern in the last week of the campaign, judging by the sharp swing of business support to National and Act.

But neither is business entirely trusted by the new government. Much criticism from business was good but bits of it were no more than simple parroting of National's line that a change of government was a big step backwards.

For example, strident defenders of the ECA refused to acknowledge its serious flaws such as employers having greater powers than employees, the cumbersome personal grievance process and the mish-mash of case law which has fleshed out the ECA.

The virtual absence of strikes was evidence of ECA's great success, argued National and the defenders. But a lack of strikes tells you only two things: employees are so happy they don't strike; and employees are so powerless they can't strike without sacrificing their jobs.

Both are true in New Zealand today. Many employees are reasonably happy with their employers, work conditions and remuneration. They believe they and their employers can work together in mutual respect to better the business and share some of the rewards.

Then there are workplaces where none of those virtues apply. Employers and employees co-exist in mutual fear. The thought of Labour redressing some of the imbalance of power terrifies such employers.

So, business and the new government have a lot of work to do to build confidence in each other. Without such a constructive relationship, the next three years will be under-productive in terms of economic and social development.

The work starts today. Labour and the Alliance can begin to create that confidence as they negotiate their coalition agreement. They need to agree policy goals which are fair to all sides - a new employment act, for example, which is neither pro-union nor pro-business; and giving ACC reforms time to prove themselves.

Another key government test is tomorrow's opening of the millennium round of world trade talks. Alliance suggestions that New Zealand should take a back seat for a while are plain wrong. However hostile the Alliance is to New Zealand's low tariffs, it has to fight in Seattle for our farmers who are gravely disadvantaged by other countries' high tariffs and subsidies.

For its part, business's role is to engage constructively with the new government. The mutual goal is crystal clear: At the next election, let's look back on 1999-2002 as the time New Zealand finally got it right, rejecting entrenched ideologies of left and right to build a socially just market economy.