The New Zealand Government is decided; come April 2021 the minimum wage will increase to $20 an hour.

Wonderful for the rest of us not on minimum wage; across New Zealand regular folk can look forward to yet another commodity price increase.

Of course, for those of us who struggle with the concept of how money works (I am seriously beginning to wonder if this may apply to Finance Minister Grant Robertson), when employees’ wages are increased this means employers will increase their takings because the guys at the top are scarcely willing to accept lower profit margins.

Of course, now with employee wages rising and employers (they’re the ones who pay wages, not the Government) needing to make more money to cover this shortfall, prices will go up for consumers. That’s the rest of us. Huh. It’s minimum wagers, too, but they can afford it now, right, because they’re making more money, you know, $20 per hour…

That’s the great economical paradox.

…Raise it at one end to help the little guys, the big guys at the other end are just going to raise it to help themselves.

It’s inflation and against inflation, consumers are never going to win.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by E K Nommie-Kell

Photography by Parrie Docks

Striking around midday, many people across Canterbury today will have experienced the short and uninvitingly sharp wind change; it was the ironic and almost comical effect that this wind had on the city of Christchurch though that made me chuckle.

The way this typically-Kiwi-early-summertime southerly wind (some would call it, simply ‘awful’ or ‘unseasonable’ but I choose to stick with ‘typically-Kiwi-early-summertime’ thank you) swept over the Plains and, following days of everybody’s favourite – usually clement always blustery – wind from the nor’ west direction, ripped through Christchurch and the people therein; even then though, it was not the sight of so many middle-aged, T-shirt-and-shorts-wearing, trying-not-to-appear-as-though-they-had-suddenly-been teleported to northern Canada, that made me chuckle.

Oh no, in that moment I thought wryly of Mr James Shaw and his loyal Green supporters; oh yes, I thought wryly indeed.

Specifically, I thought about single-use plastic bags.

The sight was amazing, remarkable, it was unlike any other rapid and prolonged Christchurch wind-shift I had witnessed; in an unprecedented turnaround, blowing gayly in this gale-force south/south-westerly wind, tumbling across roads and littering sidewalks, I saw no single-use plastic bags. Seriously, there was not one.

What I did see, however, and this was the source of my sudden yet mirthful outburst, was a maelstrom of other floating projectiles.

I focused, I strained, I recognised brand names, logos, supermarket logos; what I was seeing was the result of an inevitable surplus of reusable shopping bags.

Whales aren’t choking on these ones though, so that’s something; we’re now making a mess of the New Zealand landscape, instead.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Calena Oceans

Photography by Messa Backyard