Political & Economic week ahead: health and safety rule change backlash

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Politically, the backwash from the health and safety rule changes continues to splash through Parliament. 

The government got caught unaware last week after proposals to reclassify risky industries appeared to make worm farms and the like more risky, or at least of similar risk, to cattle farming. The classifications are only suggestions at this point but they come after intense lobbbying by traditional agricultural industries and have made the government look at best silly or at worst willing to compromise workplace safety to placate its support base. 

Work Safety Minister Michael Woodhouse, like fellow cabinet tyro Corrections Minister Sam Lotu-liga a month or so back, has caught a dose of departmental-itus. This is when ministers forget they are politicians and start talking like communications managers for their officials. Mr Woodhouse – who avoided a similar pitfall when he was made Minister of Immigration before the election – has gone down with a mildly bad infection of the disease, spouting bureaucratic jargon about "the taxonomy that would be used to describe the upper quartile of high risk."

For Labour, health and safety is a bedrock issue. The union movement was born not so much of a desire for higher pay by employees, (although that was certainly part of the concern). Workplaces that do not kill or maim employees was the most important thing and it could still help Labour leader Andrew Little – whose history as an Engineering Printing and Manufacturing Union official means this is right in his home territory – gather credibility and unify his still highly fissiparous movement.

The extent of offshore financial and commodity market slowdowns will affect New Zealand is  the other dominating factor of the week, politically as well as economically. 

First New Zealand Capital economist Chris Green, while not actually forecasting a  recession, says the risk of one is now between 25-30%, and that with commodity markets still slowing, ongoing financial market nerves in China and continued instability in the Eurozone, the chances are growing.

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