You can get out any time you like, but you can never leave

It's very interesting to see how Australia is handling the planned Australian Cricket team's tour of Zimbabwe, especially when compared with New Zealand's more hands off approach to the same issue.

John Howard has announced that the Australian Government will ban the Australian players from going on the tour, apparently by using government "powers over [players'] passports".

While I think it is great that the tour won't be going ahead, and its even better that Mugabe won't be receiving the proceeds of the contractual fine which would otherwise be levied on the ACB by the ICC (unless the Zimbabwean government or the ICC are able to make the Australian government liable for the fine), this is still pretty worrying.

In this case, it seems pretty clear that the ACB, and the individual players are not keen to take part in this tour, and that the travel ban will probably be welcome. However, the prospect of a government banning people from leaving the country on political grounds is quite disturbing. While I sympathise with Howard's objectives here (and no, I never thought I would say that either!), I think it could have been achieved in a much less disturbing way, either by the australian Gvoernment issuing a travel advisory recommending the avoidance of travel to Zimbabwe, which the ACB could then use as an excuse not to tour, or by the Australian government agreeing to indemnify the ACB for any losses or fines incurred. This would also have allowed the ACB to make a principled stand on their decision to not tour Zimbabwe, rather than pretending it is not really their idea not to tour!

It all depends on where you look....

So Winston has found another stick to beat immigrants with. He is right to say that immigration leads to increased inflation, as spending by immigrants pushes up prices, especially for housing. While he is right about this, it is a pretty typical case of looking at only part of the picture, in order to get the answer he wants.

Firstly he is ignoring the beneficial side of the money immigrants bring to this country. The inflationary impacts of this really are just an unfortunate by-product of the extra spending, which is necessary for our economy. If asked to choose between an economy that is growing, along with a little inflation, and an economy where there is no inflation, and no growth, I would be very quick to choose the former. He is also ignroing all the other benefits that immigrants bring, both in terms of their (usually skilled and motivated) labour, and the intangible benfits of diversity.

Finally, I think he is overstating the extent to which inflation is really a problem. Inflation in NZ is lower, and tracking down. I think Winston is quite right to say that the Reserve Bank Act needs to be change to broaden the focus of monetary policy, in order to require a focus on New Zealand's wider economic interests, rather than solely on inflation. However, I think that viewing immigration as a negative thing because of its inflationary impact, while ignoring its wider benefits, while accusing Alan Bollard of being too narrow in his focus, is quite ironic, and unwarranted! Its actually a shame that the useful remarks Winston has made on inflation will inevitably be overshadowed by this latest dog-whistle on immigration.

Subway/Subpar

Much amazement has been available in the slowly unfolding car wreck that has been Subway's handling of one of their employees sharing a drink with her friend. Not only have Subway apparently entirely misjudged the amount and nature of public interest and feeling in this issue, they also seem to have blundered badly in terms of their adherence to employment law.

On the first count, it has been interesting to see the apparently cross-partisan support for this unfortunate woman. Even DPF has come out in support of her. One can only imagine what the other Subway franchisees think about their Dunedin-based counterpart dragging their brand through the mud!

I initially assumed that this dismissal would be substantively ok, procedurally dodgy, and politically stupid. Turns out though, this dismissal looks like being as substantively illegal as it was unwise. Trawling through various employment law databases as I was today, I found a case which was quite similar to the Subway case, and which suggests that unless Subway settle this pretty promptly, they might be in for an embarrassing time in the ERA/Employment Court.* Of course, thanks to the legendary minginess of our courts, any award given is fairly unlikely to be overly generous!

Essentially the case cited above involves a Hoyts employee who ate some popcorn without authorisation. The ERA was pretty scathing of the employer's conduct, and despite the occurrence of a technical theft, reinstatement was ordered. The amazing thing is that the Subway franchisees in question apparently haven't chosen to check the legal situation before sacking this woman. One can only assume that a person with the capital to buy a Subway franchise could afford a couple of hours of a lawyer's time to devise a plausible disciplinary proceedure. come to think of it, why didn't Subway head office either have a proceedure in place themselves, or at least intervene at an early stage to rescue their brand from the inevitable damage.

For the record, the employer in Hoyts actually followed a stronger proceedure than in the Subway case, and had a stronger substantive case too. As such, it seems likely that Subway are either going to have to settle, or fac an embarrasing and public day in court.

*Here's the citation, if you're into that sort of thing. HOYTS CINEMAS (NZ) LTD (HOYTS MOORHOUSE) v JACOB [[2002] 2 ERNZ 638] (Palmer J, 20 December 2002, Employment Court, Christchurch ( CC29/02))