Australia wage gap key issue for Act party deal

Act Party leader Don Brash. File photo / NZ Herald

Addressing the wage gap with Australia will be a key issue for Act in any cooperation deal with National, leader Don Brash says.

Speaking at Act's Wellington campaign close today, Dr Brash focused on the transtasman gap, and announced that re-establishing a taskforce to address the income gap would be a top priority in any confidence and supply agreement with National.

Dr Brash said the near-record numbers of New Zealanders moving across the Tasman was an urgent situation, and pointed to recent statistics showing the number had risen to 25,000 per year.

"For decades, there has been a strong relationship between the exodus of New Zealanders across the Tasman and the gap between New Zealand and Australian incomes. When the gap grows, New Zealanders leave faster."

Addressing the gap has long been a central issue for Act, and in 2009 the 2025 Taskforce was set up as part of the party's confidence and supply agreement with National to look at ways to close the gap.

The taskforce was dumped earlier this year after the Government ruled out picking up a number of its recommendations, including raising the superannuation age, reintroducing interest on student loans, cutting taxes, selling state-assets and encouraging foreign investment.

"In 2008, 2025 seemed like a time frame by which we could close the gap. It gave us 17 years to do so. Given that we have fallen further behind in the past three years, and the Prime Minister does not want to move as fast as the Taskforce proposed previously, it seems we will need more time," Dr Brash said today.

"And so it is with great sadness that I call for a 2030 Taskforce, to measure the gap between New Zealand and Australia, and give suggestions for closing it by 2030."

A group of about 40 gathered at the Concrete bar in Wellington to hear from Dr Brash and the party's local candidate, Stephen Whittington.

The audience was made up largely of people aged in their 20s, contrasting starkly against 71-year-old Dr Brash, and Act's founder Roger Douglas, 73, who also attended the event.

Mr Whittington, 25, spoke about the party's growing appeal to young voters, noting that messages of individual freedom were a particular point of interest among those he had spoken to.

"Labour's plans to impose a $2 standard drink price for alcohol, which would make all bottles of wine at least $16 and a bottle of gin $70 is certainly something student groups in Wellington are particularly concerned about."