Taxpayers Union blows the whistle on a nice little caper whereby MPs can circumvent NZ’s labour laws

It looks like the Taxpayers’ Union – an outfit with aims generally supported by the Member for Eketahuna North – might have rumbled to a bit of carry-on he will confess to having exploited.

It’s a wheeze that resulted in MPs chewing through more than $65,000 per month on payouts to avoid messy employment grievances.

Jordan Williams, the union’s Executive Director, exposed the costs of the practice in a media release today, obviously after doing a bit of snooping by brandishing the Official Information Act.

Our labour laws have gone to pot – or why we must do things by the book when sacking a drug supplier

Come in Kate Wilkinson. There’s work to be done in your labour portfolio.

Urgently.

The Employment Relations Authority needs dismantling, our employment law needs rewriting and common sense needs restoring to a boss’s right to fire staff.

But don’t sack the buggers at the authority before we have put new arrangements in place. Otherwise they are apt to take legal action under a system with which they have become all too familiar, and will try to screw the taxpayer for big bucks.

Alf tenders this advice on learning that a small business has been ordered to pay an employee $12,000 – including $6000 compensation for distress – after he was sacked for supplying cannabis to a workmate.