The general election ended last Saturday night with a convincing victory by the National Party. They have very quickly been able to pull together a governing coalition with the Act Party. They're also looking to get agreements with other parties such as the Maori Party for ongoing support.

Labour rightly conceded the election early on and the leadership of the last nine years has stood down.

The New Zealand electorate has spoken and the democratic decision must be respected. The new government must be allowed an opportunity to demonstrate what type of government it will be. John Key has already said he wants to include unions in a discussion on the economy as the worldwide downturn continues and he has already agreed to consider a proposal from the Council of Trade Unions on Kiwisaver. These signals are encouraging. But we still need to be vigilant about their promises made during the election campaign to remove the protection against unfair dismissal for new workers in small businesses, to change the rules on collective bargaining and to hand ACC over to private insurance companies.

We can be thankful for the many achievements of the Labour-led government of the last nine years. These include the Employment Relations Act with its good faith requirements, rules about collective bargaining which means employers can't just refuse to negotiate or reject collective agreements, paid education leave, etc; four weeks minimum annual leave and better public holiday laws; better health and safety laws, Working for Families, Kiwisaver and many others.

As a union, our job remains to organise and to advocate for our members, to seek the best possible wages and conditions of employment, to work towards genuinely mutual workplace relationships and an effective voice on relevant work issues like productivity. The next year or two will likely be very difficult for most of us because of the world economic situation and the pressure on many businesses. We will continue to need good workplace laws to keep a balance between the interests of employers and employees. And we need a government that will deal fairly with those issues and to ensure good quality workplace relations. Our collective future is too important for it not to.

Andrew Little
National Secretary