Letter No.146
8 June 2000

11 May 2001

Social Services Minister Steve Maharey opens the first Heartland Service centre in Dargaville. The centre will restore face-to-face government services in the town. Ten Heartland Service centres are budgeted to open in other provincial centres by the end of the year, with more expected the following year.

13 May 2001

Up to 50 new jobs will be created at Massey University as it enrolls 1,000 students from China into its Bachelor of Business Studies programme.

14 May 2001

There are 57 social worker vacancies at the Department of Child, Youth and Families throughout the country. Chief social worker Shannon Pakura says the department is battling to find staff, as there are not enough social work graduates coming through the universities.

Winz says it has met nearly all its annual targets within the first nine months of the contract year. This year it has already placed 1,610 more long-term unemployed people into work than its performance contract called for.

15 May 2001

Deputy PM Jim Anderton says that some form of paid-parental leave will be in place by next April. Details won't be ready until August but signals are that the new policy will fall short of what the Alliance Party campaigned on.

16 May 2001

The Reserve Bank lowers the official cash interest rate to 5.75% after the US Federal Reserve Bank dropped its interest rate to 4.0%. The five largest trading banks in NZ immediately reduce their floating mortgage lending rates to 7.7%.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics says wages in Australia rose 1.0% over the previous quarter. But with increasing unemployment, the ABS says it does not see wage growth as too high or that it will be inflationary.

The private shoe manufacturing company that operates partially inside Wanganui Prison says it is dropping its inmate staff from 35 to 15 workers. Stages' director Steve Ellis says the company will expand its Carterton factory to do more of the work. Ellis says that high inmate turnover makes training difficult to do in the prison.

17 May 2001

The Maori university, Te Wananga-O-Raukawa at Otaki, has 180 voluntary teachers. CEO Whatarangi Winiata says the large number of volunteers meant that less than half of institution's revenue was spent on staff.

18 May 2001

About 45 staff at Tenix Shipbuilding NZ are made redundant as the Whangarei firm's contracts to build sections of the ANZAC frigates have been completed. However, with some re-training, they may find local jobs building yachts. NZ Yachts' Dennis Maconaghie says his yacht building firm will need additional staff in Whangarei to complete their existing contracts.

19 May 2001

The World Bank cancels plans for a June meeting in Barcelona after saying that anti-globalisation demonstrators were intent on turning the city into a battleground.

23 May 2001

Finance Minister Michael Cullen presents the 2001-02 Budget. See the special Budget feature in this issue.

The incidence of suicide is more than doubled for unemployed people as it is for those in work. Wellington School of Medicine's Dr Sunny Collings says that an unemployed person is over 2.2 times more likely to suicide than if they were working.

All eight NZ universities indicate they will not accept the Budget's funding offer of a 2.6% rise on last year, dependent on a freeze of student fees. Victoria University vice-chancellor Stuart McCutcheon says the Budget's similar funding offer had dealt tertiary institutions a crippling blow.

25 May 2001

Canterbury University vice-chancellor Daryl Le Grew closes the university at 1pm. Over 13,000 students and staff attend speeches in the quad protesting the Budget funding offer.

Michael Cullen warns universities that if they refuse the funding offer, he will give the $100 million to others in the education sector. Universities say that agreeing to last year's deal of a 2.3% rise (dependent on a student fee freeze) cost them $17 million.

NZ had a trade surplus in April of $399 million. Deutsche Bank' Darren Gibbs says that the value of exports for the three months to April is up 16.5% on last year.

28 May 2001

Provisional results of the Census taken earlier this year shows that NZ's population grew a mere 3% in the last five years, to 3,792,654 people.

Non-executive worker incomes dropped by _0.3% over the last 12 months according to a study of more than 500 NZ companies by Cubiks NZ.

The student loan scheme will be available to prison inmates from August next year.

29 May 2001

Japanese manufacturer Isuzu Motors says it will cut over 25% of its workforce or 9,700 jobs, primarily in Japan over the next three years.

30 May 2001

Winz CEO Christine Rankin attends a hearing to determine which court her personal grievance case will be heard in and afterwards meets with the media. Rankin: " I have a story to tell that most New Zealanders will be shocked and horrified by and I intend, somehow, to find a way to tell that story."

Paid parental leave is expected to cost $96 million according to research by the Ministry of Women's Affairs.

A Maori summit calls for the reintroduction of the Family Benefit. Brenda Lowe-Johnson of the Christchurch Methodist Mission says the restoration of the Family Benefit would halt Maori poverty and give all children equality. She says it would keep children in school longer and help the government keep track of them.

The Glenbrook steel mill's Australian owner BHP says it is undertaking a $27 million upgrade at the plant. A shadow had been hanging over the mill's future but the new investment indicates the mill and its 1,300 employees will remain working.

31 May 2001

Employment Court chief justice Tom Goddard says that Christine Rankin's case against the State Services Commission will be heard in the Employment Court, rather than in the High Court. This means that the case will be argued on the basis of the Employment Relations Act.

Electrical products manufacturer PDL Holdings announces it is shifting its plant to southern China. About 300 people work for PDL in Christchurch but the company has not yet said how many of these will be made redundant.

5 June 2001

Cook Islands officials say that unemployment does not exist in the islands, which is experiencing a labour shortage. The Cook Island government is appealing to the 47,000 strong Cook Island community in NZ to return to the islands to take up job opportunities as tourism is booming there.

Electricity is being disconnected from the houses of low-income people in the Far North at a record number of 100 per week. The alternative use of candles and fires for lighting and heating is associated with recent house fires in the district.