Soana
Aholelei, RNZ Pacific journalist
Pacific
people living in New Zealand have been hit the hardest in
the latest unemployment statistics.
Stats NZ numbers
showed the unemployment rate rising to 5.4 percent, in the
three months ended December, from
5.3 percent in the previous quarter. It was the highest
level since March 2015.
In comparison, the rate for
Pacific unemployment rose to 12.3 percent.
Labour’s
Pacific peoples spokesperson Carmel Sepuloni said this is
the highest of any ethnic group and more than double what it
was two years ago.
“They’re the worst unemployment
stats for any group now at 12.3, but they’re not just
statistics.
“This reflects a large number of Pasifika
people in New Zealand that have lost jobs or simply can’t
find work because of the economy and how poorly it’s going
and with everything going on.”
Speaking on the report,
Finance Minister Nicola Willis told reporters the government
is doing its best to bring unemployment down.
“We are
working very hard to get unemployment to come down, what is
positive to see is that 15,000 more jobs were created in the
past three months. That the hours people are working are
increasing, that more people are feeling optimistic about
getting a job who are entering that workforce, so that’s
really positive to see,” Willis said.
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According to the
Stats NZ report, a total of 165,000 people were unemployed,
a rise of approximately 4000 on the previous quarter and
10,000 on a year ago.
Sepuloni said the National Party
have only themselves to blame with the recent unemployment
rate and for cutting jobs in sectors that have a high
percentage of Pasifika employees.
“One of the biggest
mistakes that the government made when they came in was to
pause the infrastructure projects, the building of houses,
because what we saw were job losses en masse in those areas,
and many of our Pacific people were working in those jobs,”
she said.
But Willis said her government has always
been upfront with their priorities on getting the country
back on track.
“We’ve been really open with New
Zealanders that there is an order of events; first you have
to get inflation under control, then you have to get
interest rates coming down, then you need growth back into
the economy, and then you can actually get the job creation
and lower unemployment that we all seek.”
With the
elections in November, Sepuloni said this country needs a
new government that will support them and follow through on
what they campaigned on.
“We have to look back to the
election campaign. Christopher Luxon and the National Party
made out that they were going to address the cost of living
pressures that New Zealanders were facing. They haven’t done
that at all.
“In fact, things got worse for all New
Zealanders, and that includes our Pacific
community.”
In an email statement responding directly
to Sepuloni, Nicola Willis said:”Like all New Zealanders,
Pacific people have been affected by the previous
government’s dreadful mismanagement of the
economy.
“It allowed inflation to get out of control
which put huge strain on families and businesses.The good
news is that businesses have resumed investing and job
opportunities are being created again.
Labour’s plan
to spend, borrow and tax more just as the economy is
recovering would be a disaster for all New Zealanders,
including Pacific people,” the statement said.
“We
have seen that movie before. It ends with more debt, more
people out of work and more hardship for families and the
businesses that a strong economy relies on to create
jobs.”
Prime Minster Luxon fully supports his finance
minsiter’s sentiments. He said the way forward is to keep a
Labour and Greens government out.
“What’s clear there
is that the alternative is they’re going to crank up
spending yet again, and when they don’t have enough money to
fund that spending, they’re going to tax you more for it,”
he said.
“So welcome to the world of capital gains
tax, wealth tax, death tax, higher income tax, higher
corporate tax, that’s coming all your way if god forbid
there is a Labour-Greens
government.”
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