Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Rachel Mackintosh: E tū National Secretary on ACT's plan to freeze minimum wage, lower youth training rate

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Rachel Mackintosh: E tū National Secretary on ACT's plan to freeze minimum wage, lower youth training rate · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: ACT wants to freeze the minimum wage for three years.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Unions don't like it, obviously, but even the EMA, representing bosses,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: reckons maybe it's a bit much.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: I think the minimum wage freeze is probably a step
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: too far.
• 0:12
  Speaker 3: I get the sentiment behind it. Rachel McIntosh, ETU National Secretary,
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: with us this morning. Rachel, good morning.
• 0:18
  Speaker 4: Good morning.
• 0:19
  Speaker 3: Not a fan, I would imagine.
• 0:21
  Speaker 4: Definitely not a fan. This is a terrible thing for
• 0:26
  Speaker 4: our country. It's certainly a terrible thing for anybody who
• 0:31
  Speaker 4: gets paid the minimum wage who will effectively be going
• 0:34
  Speaker 4: backwards over three years.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: It's not going to happen, is it? I mean, I
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: don't think National's going to go for it, but you
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: get increases. I mean, as part of the problem, under
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: the last government, we had an increase of, what, 60-plus
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: percent over the term of their government. And you've got
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: small businesses who employ people on the minimum wage who
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: say that that upped their labour costs to the point
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: where some of them could no longer operate or had
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: to reduce hours. Do you have to maybe look at
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: smaller increases so that it is more affordable, so that
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: it's not such a shock and we get knee-jerk reactions
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: like this one?
• 1:14
  Speaker 4: The increases to the minimum wage have been totally unnecessary.
• 1:18
  Speaker 4: we're actually still suffering from the freeze to the minimum
• 1:23
  Speaker 4: wage that happened 30 years ago because the minimum wage
• 1:27
  Speaker 4: is well below what people need to survive on. And
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: if you think about the people who are doing the work,
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: if you freeze the minimum wage, then what you are
• 1:37
  Speaker 4: saying is that there are people in this country that
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: are not worthy of being able to live, basically, and
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: there is nobody in that category. And the people doing
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: the work actually are creating the wealth. And as wages
• 1:55
  Speaker 4: go up, actually money circulates around the economy. So those
• 1:59
  Speaker 4: small businesses, if they are underpaying people, then they are
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: not creating a customer base for themselves. So it actually
• 2:06
  Speaker 4: doesn't help the people that it's supposed to help. And
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: it certainly doesn't help the people it's not supposed to help,
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: which is the people doing the work.
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: No, yeah, I totally understand that.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: I don't think anyone's saying that anyone on the minimum
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: wage doesn't deserve to get more or doesn't need more.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: Everybody needs more. The question is, where does the money
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: come from, right?
• 2:27
  Speaker 4: Well, the money comes from the wealth that is being
• 2:29
  Speaker 4: created by the people doing the work. That's where the
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: money comes from.
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: Good to have you on the show this morning. That's
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: Rachel McIntosh, E2 National Secretary.
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: It's For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, listen
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: live to.
• 2:43
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• 2:45
  Speaker 2: Weekdays or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.