Word: labour
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Clark can lead her Labour party to victory on Sept. 17 in a general election, she will be free to continue the frugal economic management and progressive social makeover that have been the hallmark of her winning ways since 1999. After the country's stagnation in the '90s, and the reform shocks of the preceding decade, the Clark era has been a prosperous one. "There is no mood for radical change in our country," Clark declared at her campaign launch in Auckland on Aug. 21. Economic output has grown by an average of 4% a year; the country's unemployment...
...Labour won two votes for every one that its traditional rival National was able to secure. Amid national affluence, and with such a large electoral buffer, Clark should be unassailable. But she's not. Far from it. Labour finds itself neck and neck in the polls in a two-horse race with a revitalized National, under the leadership of political novice Don Brash, a former governor of the country's Reserve Bank. Are people ungrateful, or has Labour reached its use-by date? It may simply be that New Zealand politics is becoming a more unpredictable game or, as Deputy...
...from the bottom up. Doesn't that lift everyone?" Despite strong job growth, unemployment rates for Maori and Pacific Islanders are way above national averages; one-third of Maori children live in families that rely on welfare. Clark says education and acquiring skills will get them out of poverty. "Labour's always got an Achilles heel around issues such as race," says Cullen, who claims his party straddles all of New Zealand's ethnic communities...
...Cullen questions National's commitment to improving the lives of the poor and whether it will be able to afford the increased costs that are inevitable if Treaty claims are to be settled by 2010 without reneging on its tax cuts or blowing the Budget. Cullen believes Labour is well on track, with its "little bit of stick, a lot of carrot" approach moving people off unemployment and sickness benefits. Brash says that's not enough. At a time when businesses are finding it hard to fill job vacancies, 15% of the working-age population are being paid...
...people here, in shorts and light dresses, look like they're on holiday. Several locals stop by with donations or to pick up on a previous conversation, as the smell of frying vegetable oil from a snack bar wafts by. A young mother, carrying a child, identifies as a Labour voter but she wants to be persuaded to change her vote this time. Key zeroes in on National's tax cuts and a reduction in the high effective marginal tax rates she faces as a part-time social services worker. Key finds common ground with her on the problems...