This morning's Herald on Sunday carries a story on bonus for Parliament's unionists:

The agency in charge of parliamentary staff has agreed to a cash bonus for union members, despite John Key's National Party previously denouncing such deals as discriminatory.

An email obtained by the Herald on Sunday shows union members will receive a one-off, $1000 bonus from the Parliamentary Service - double the amount non-union members will get.

During the Helen Clark Labour administration, union staff once landed an $800 bonus. Act and National blasted the pay-off then, calling it "corrupt" and accusing Labour of cronyism.

Despite that this is union welfare and a political subsidy for the left goes on. We know of parliamentary staff who feel uncomfortable with the pressure and financial incentive from the Parliamentary Service to join a union.

The Government should scrap these kinds of deals. It made sense that the Labour Party would want to ensure its trade union donors are well funded. The fact it is continuing under National is outrageous.

Email on bonus to Parliamentary staff

The email the Herald on Sundays refers to was sent through to our tip line last week.  Click "continue reading" to view.

 

Last week we released material showing that millions of dollars is being wasted in a CTU/Business NZ deal for health and safety training that, according to ACC's experts, for every dollar spent 84 cents is wasted. As you'll recall, the Minister of ACC, Judith Collins, labelled the scheme a 'sham' and a 'rort'. It was clear that millions intended to improve workplace health and safety was being used for programmes that did little, if anything, except 'raise awareness'.

We are pleased to report that, despite the initial doubt, the Taxpayers' Union has now confirmed that ACC is cutting the taxpayer funding of the Council of Trade Unions and Business NZ for this dodgy training program. We understand that the final contracts revealed last week dramatically reduce the funding Business NZ and the CTU receive.

This is a big win for levy payers - who will no longer have the burden of funding a deal that achieves little, if anything. For workers this is a win - the money can now be redirected to measures that actually reduces accidents. It's also a win for Business NZ and CTU members - no longer are the two organisations conflicted in their ACC advocacy for members.

ACC has now publicly stated that the this training programme will end this year. That, combined with the CTU and Business NZ's new contracts is a policy victory.

Yesterday it looked like the Taxpayers' Union struck up it's first win, with ACC announcing that it would scrap the health and safety training scheme which has cost levy holders $19million to date, with 84 cents per dollar being wasted (even with optimistic assumptions).

ONE News, 3 News, the Herald, Stuff, Radio NZ, and Newstalk ZB all reported that ACC had decided to scrap the programme late last year.

Tonight's TV news coverage of the corporate and union welfare exposed earlier today.

ONE News: $19m wasted on health and safety training with 84c per dollar wasted

Click here or the image below for video on demand.

3 News: ACC dumps workplace training scheme

Click here or the image below for video on demand.

Material released by the Taxpayers’ Union show a cosy deal between Business New Zealand, the Council of Trade Unions ("CTU") and ACC has cost ACC-levy payers $19 million since 2003.

The documents, available and summarised below show ACC knew that millions paid to Business NZ and the CTU to provide health and safety training did little, if anything, to reduce workplace accidents.