“GOOD people” are put off from standing for election over online abuse, the Economic Development Minister has said as he launched a robust defence of comments he made about workers’ rights.
Deputy Gerald Voisin said that videos of himself have been posted online and that his wife had to field “an abusive phone call” following controversy around a statement he made during an Institute of Directors event.
When targeting a “healthy” figure of 3% for annual growth at which to aim, Deputy Voisin said achieving this would require “difficult decisions”, citing workers’ rights as an area that might have to be a lower priority.
Asked about his “inflammatory” words by Deputy Lee Carpenter during yesterday’s States sitting, the minister said: “None of my comments are made to be inflammatory. They are meant to stimulate discussion and debate.
“There is a small section of our community that takes what I say, they make videos of me, they slate me on social media, they stir up an emotive issue like, for example, workers rights – and I never said that we should remove or reduce workers rights – but people on social media think it is fun to whip up a frenzy against me so I get slated on social media, my wife takes an abusive phone call and it is another reason why a lot of good people don’t stand for this Assembly because of the abuse that they think they will get.”
Earlier this year, Deputy Voisin again attracted controversy when he argued, in a letter to the JEP, that the Island’s statutory minimum wage was “strangling the economy” and driving up inflation.
Acknowledging that he “did go about it incorrectly” when making those comments and pointing to that fact that he apologised to the Chief Minister, Deputy Voisin reiterated that at no point was he trying to “inflame”.
“I am working to improve the lives of people,” he said. “The reason I came back into the Assembly was to improve the lives of people in Jersey who I see have suffered over 20 years – 20 years of no economic growth and this is why people feel worse off in Jersey because they are worse off in Jersey.
“As I said when I made my speech when I stood for this role, if we in Jersey had only half the increase in wages as we had seen in the 1990s, then people in our community would be £7,000 better off. That is what I am fighting for so just toeing the line of not raising these issues does not actually help to inform the debate.”
He said that while minimum wage rates would be helpful for some, it is not always the case as other factors come into play for businesses.
“For every person that gets an increase because the minimum wage has gone up there are other people who fund that their working hours are cuts, that their overtime is cut and it is those people it is not helpful for,” he said. “This is why growing the economy is so important. That is also why we have to be cognisant of the fact that our economy has shrunk for the last two years.”
