Goff’s record on jobs
June 3rd, 2009 at 9:00 am by David FarrarFran O’Sullivan reminded me on Saturday that Phil Goff was Minister of Employment from 1984 to 1990. I had forgotten this. I just remembered Phil as the man who introduced higher tertiary fees.
So everytime Phil Goff goes on about how the Government is not doing enough to reduce unemployment, we should look at how Phil did as Minister of Employment. And of course Phil did not have a global recession as a factor to deal with.
The Household Labour Force Survey only started in 1986, so we’ll compare 1986 to the end of 1990.
Well Phil managed to preside over the destruction of 97,000 jobs – falling from 1,623,000 to 1,526,000. Unemployment doubled from 71,000 to 150,000 – in percentage terms going from 4.2% to 8.9%.
Tags: jobs, Phil Goff, unemployment
June 3rd, 2009 at 9:11 am
He’s well qualified to recognise failure in that area then!
Vote:June 3rd, 2009 at 9:16 am
“Do as I say, not as I do”
Surely a politician couldn’t hold that view?
Hypocrisy from an MP?
Never!
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
But, as they say: Those who can – do. Those who can’t – teach. Those who can’t even teach – become politicians.
Vote:June 3rd, 2009 at 9:25 am
Perhaps the reason you probably didn’t know Goff was Minister of Employment is because he didnt do anything on that portfolio to get people jobs. Instead he got another minister to get his Ministry to put the unemployed on the sickness benefit to hide the problem. The rest got jobs without Goff’s assistance.
Goff did as much for employment as a Minister of Crime would do in terms of in increasing the crime rate. We can do that without Govt assistance, too.
Vote:June 3rd, 2009 at 9:38 am
Oh DPF! As I’m sure any Labour MP will tell you- unemployment in the 1984-1990 period was caused by the National govt of the 1990′s….by…um…. distorting space-time!
P.S Goodbye Richard Worth.
Vote:June 3rd, 2009 at 9:46 am
Good god, if you’d pulled out these stats in the 2005 election you surely would’ve won! ppffft
Vote:June 3rd, 2009 at 10:04 am
“And of course Phil did not have a global recession as a factor to deal with”
You mean other than the massive financial collapse in 1987? It’s not the same thing as a recession sure, but the NZ stock exchange more or less halved in value over a day or two, which surely had some impact on the economy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Monday_(1987)
[DPF: Yes, but a lesser shock that a global recession]
Vote:June 3rd, 2009 at 10:43 am
Of course that particular surge of unemployment was caused by more or less deliberately allowing several industries that were a drag on NZ to go out of business: car and TV assembly plants, for example. It was painful, but it was the right thing to do, those people eventually found much more useful jobs, and we’re all better off as a result.
Vote:June 3rd, 2009 at 10:58 am
This criticism of Goff is unfair. As a junior minister in the Labour Govt Goff was not in a position to make much impact on the things that really drove unemployment. The role of Minister of Employment is actually pretty marginal.
Of course, by supporting Rogernomics Goff greatly contributed to increasing unemployment. But as brucehoult points out, that was necessary and to the ultimate good of New Zealand.
If Goff is to be criticised, it is surely more reasonable to criticise him for resiling from his actions in that period, not for his failure to artificially pump up employment – something that – at that time – could only have been done by pursuing policies which would have been (in the longer run) spectacularly bad for NZ.
Vote:June 3rd, 2009 at 11:23 am
“Well Phil managed to preside over the destruction of 97,000 jobs”
I think the National Party is well on the way to beating that record, the wonderful “success” of the Jobs Summit notwithstanding.
Vote:June 3rd, 2009 at 11:33 am
s.russell – strictly speaking, you’re right. But the point that Fran O’Sullivan noted, as I blogged about at the weekend, was that Goff was very much a devotee of Sir Roger Douglas, and had little or no compunction in his role as a Minister in implementing the policies driven by Douglas. That certainly opens Goff to allegations of hypocrisy if he tries to rewrite history and present himself as the saviour of the poor.
Vote:June 3rd, 2009 at 11:45 am
I too agree with brucehoult. The message then, as it is now, is that NZers must work in productive employment and if realignment of the national workforce means job losses then that bad, but still prefferable to a long-term decline in our standard of living. So it’s Goff’s hypocrisy that should be amplified, not the fact the jobs were lost.
Vote:June 3rd, 2009 at 12:44 pm
You may well mock him, but Goff will go on to rival Bill Rowling as one of Labour’s greatest MPs.
Vote:June 3rd, 2009 at 1:30 pm
3 Coil – I will explain that to my Grandchildren – assuming they even recognise Goof as anything other than a tempoary caretaker.
Vote:June 3rd, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Interesting, the left wing hysteria merchants get to blame everything on the previous national government for a full decade but the new National government gets 2 months to make everything perfect or its all their fault.
Commies wouldn’t know accountabilty and responsibility if it stood them up against a wall and gave them five rounds rapid.
Vote:June 3rd, 2009 at 8:51 pm
“3-coil (516) Vote: 1 1 Says:
June 3rd, 2009 at 12:44 pm
You may well mock him, but Goff will go on to rival Bill Rowling as one of Labour’s greatest MPs.”
Stop smokin that shit will ya…
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