Ratio plan rejected for coalition deals

By Vernon Small

deputy political editor

Alliance MP Laila Harre has hit back at Labour's "ratio-based" approach to post-election policy deals, saying the Alliance will push its policies hard whatever its level of support.

Labour leader Helen Clark has pointed to Labour's six or seven-fold poll advantage over its coalition partner in answer to queries about policy differences between the two parties.

Laila Harre said Labour was dulling expectations of a new government and the Alliance was raising them. That process would not stop on election day.

"Whatever our vote is, we are going into government to advocate for our policies and to win support for them publicly.

"We are going to represent a substantial vote and our supporters are going to want to see some delivery."

She said rather than talk ratios, Helen Clark should say that neither party in a coalition would be subsumed by the other's agenda.

If Labour took the view that everything came down to ratios, then voters needed to understand they would not get Alliance policies without giving it their party vote.

Laila Harre said that in government the Alliance would use a variety of means, including public campaigns, to win support for its policies.

"I am more than happy to march down Queen St as a member of a new government demanding four weeks' annual leave."

Yesterday, she released the party's minimum code for workers that would lift the minimum wage by 50c an hour to $7.50, phase in four weeks' annual leave over three years, boost women's pay to the level of men's for work of equal value and provide paid parental leave of 12 weeks funded by a 0.24 per cent levy on payrolls.

She said Labour's policies on workers' issues were grossly inadequate and it should realise that the middle class favoured paid parental leave and an extra week's annual leave, and probably favoured pay equity.

"I don't believe Labour really wants to do these things and I know we do."

The Alliance's minimum code includes five days' sick leave, five days' family leave and three days' bereavement leave. Employers would be required to grant reasonable tangihanga leave.

All workers would have a right to a minimum redundancy payout.

A workplace commission would set occupation-based national pay equity levels after applications from unions, individuals, groups of workers or an employment equity bureau.