Bradford Sue: Minimum Wage (New Entrants) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Bradford Sue: Minimum Wage (New Entrants) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:641;Page:11592] 
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 I move  
That the Minimum Wage (New Entrants) Amendment Bill be now read a third time 
. For too long young workers in this country have been underpaid and devalued. When I started work on this bill just after the 2005 election I was motivated by anger at the unfairness of the way in which 16 and 17-year-old workers were paid less for doing the same job simply because of their age and also by a broader concern at the way in which so many older people in this country disrespect the young. It is a disrespect that the pay differential simply serves to magnify. 
The bill we are passing today goes some way towards remedying both these problems and I am grateful for the support the Green Party found from enough parties in this House to see the bill through. I know that it has been a tough call for MPs in some parties to see their way clear to supporting the elimination of age-based employment discrimination but at least we have got there almost. I am hopeful that in a few years’ time equal pay for equal work on the basis of age will not be seen as the radical notion some people seem to see it as today. 
I am of course sorry that the clarity of my original purpose—to completely remove youth rates for 16 and 17-year-olds—has been watered down but the compromise we have ended up with still marks a huge improvement on the status quo. From 1 April 2008 16 and 17-year-old workers will have to be paid the minimum adult wage once they have completed 3 months or 200 hours of work with any employer whichever period is the shorter. If they are supervising or training other workers then they will have to be paid the adult wage full stop. 
The new entrants wage for the first 3 months or 200 hours will still be paid at 80 percent of the adult rate. Personally I think this is superfluous. By the age of 16 many young people in our country have already been in the paid workforce for some time—for months if not for years. Even if they have not every person who is new on the job needs time to learn the ropes and to be oriented to the new workplace whether they are 16 25 or 60. 
However although the Greens do not support the new entrants wage concept we do accept the realities of political compromise and I am grateful to the Labour Party New Zealand First United Future Jim Anderton and Taito Phillip Field for helping to get the bill this far. I would also particularly acknowledge Maori Party members who are opposing the bill in its amended form but who are in fact its fiercest supporters. I am grateful for the Maori Party’s unflinching and uncompromising support for the bill as originally conceived rather than in its watered-down version and I hope that one day their party and ours and others will join in going the whole way in abolishing youth rates altogether. 
This bill even as it was originally drafted was a compromise all along. Right from the start I was criticised in some quarters—and rightfully so—for putting up a bill that did not do away with age discrimination altogether but maintained it for workers under 16. There were two main reasons why I did not take the bill down that path. The first was pragmatic. I did not think a bill that did that would have had any chance of succeeding in this Parliament and I think that events have proved that to be so. 
The second reason was that although I do not support wage discrimination on the basis of age for under-16-year-olds I do think we need some serious thinking and discussion in this country around the issues of children and young people in paid work. At what age should our children enter the paid workforce? Do we think that some jobs are OK at certain ages and some are not? On what basis do we make that decision? Why are some jobs seen to be worth less than others? Where do we draw which line? How do we stop some children being exploited in basically slave labour conditions? That is something that still happens here to which we as a society remain almost completely blind. 
I hope that the debate around this bill will help trigger serious consideration of these issues by the Government other political parties trade unions employers churches and non-governmental organisations. In the end I hope we will have a society that recognises that if someone is doing an adult job on an adult job description then that person should get adult wages. We must also protect our children from having to go out to work too young or from working in conditions or for wages that are untenable by anyone’s standards. 
I sometimes cringe when I hear human rights groups and people of goodwill rightfully rail against slave child labour in other countries while not acknowledging the increasing use of child labour as defined by the International Labour Organization that is occurring here. Addressing this issue will take more than a member’s bill and I hope that the Minister of Labour takes up this issue and includes it as part of the Government’s employment relations work programme. I can assure her that she will have the support of the Green Party if she does. 
Now I will make a particular acknowledgment of some of the organisations that did so much to help ensure that this bill got through. Above all I would like to pay my respects to two particular trade unions the National Distribution Union and my own union Unite! which both put a huge effort in people power and resources into mobilising against discriminatory youth rates. Right from the start both the National Distribution Union and Unite! organised on the job on the streets in the union movement and with MPs to demand an end to unequal pay for young workers. Along with other groups like students associations the Council of Trade Unions youth union movement and Radical Youth they organised some of the loudest and most colourful rallies and demonstrations we have seen on the streets of Auckland and Wellington for some years. 
Young workers told their own stories of exploitation naming and shaming youth rates employers as well as placing this struggle well and truly within the broader struggle for youth and worker rights. They not only took to the streets they also came to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and made far more perceptive and intelligent submissions than did some of those people who opposed the bill. 
Young workers and their unions also included the issue in their bargaining claims. With some employers such as Postie Plus and BP they have succeeded in abolishing youth rates altogether. With others such as Progressive Enterprises and Restaurant Brands they have started the process to eliminate youth rates which I am sure will soon be a total elimination further assisted by this bill. Beyond this core of support the Council of Trade Unions and the rest of the union movement pitched in alongside groups like youth organisations community law centres church agencies the Office of the Children’s Commissioner the Human Rights Commission and many others. 
I will also make a brief comment on submissions that opposed the bill. I was surprised at the low level of opposition from the business sector. It was as if in most cases these submitters went through the motions of opposing the bill without their heart really being in it. In fact I had to rely on some of the business submissions to negotiate the final compromises to allow the bill to go through. Perhaps I should not have been so surprised by the lack of opposition from that quarter. I have been interested to read a couple of employer polls over the last 2 years that showed the majority of employers in some places do not in fact support the continuation of youth rates. Also some major newspaper editorials have come out in full support of the bill. 
These business and editorial comments have left the National Party completely exposed on this issue. Its opposition at the Committee stage was I believe purely token. The refrain seemed to be: “We do not believe in age-based wage discrimination but we do not want Parliament to do anything to reduce or eliminate it.” What a cop-out! It is time the National Party turned its back on the knee-jerk anti-worker attitudes that have infused that party for so long. Those members should instead support this and other progressive pro-worker legislation rather than pandering to the predilections of some of its more reactionary backers. 
Finally I want to comment on the hand grenade that the Ministry of Justice tossed into the select committee proceedings in the form of its New Zealand Bill of Rights Act compliance report. This report stated that the way current regulations that provided for youth rates in the minimum wage could be considered ultra vires—[ 
Interruption 
] 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: The member is just going over the top. I am sorry to interrupt the member. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: What’s wrong with that? 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: I made a ruling Mr Henare. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: And that was? 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: I am on my feet I am making a ruling— 
Hon Tau Henare 
: About? 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: Oh look the member will not argue with me while I am on my feet. The member will leave the Chamber now. 
Hon Tau Henare withdrew from the Chamber. 
SUE BRADFORD 
: Like a hand grenade that New Zealand Bill of Rights Act compliance report seemed to stun the rest of the select committee which preferred not to deal with the issues raised in it regardless of my attempts to put those issues back on the table. I still have a niggle that the compromise reached in this bill may not meet the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act compliance test. However the amended bill does take us a long way down the path to completely removing discrimination based on age in our Minimum Wage Act. 
I am pleased with what we have achieved today. I look forward to the time when youth wages discrimination will disappear completely not only from the Minimum Wage Act but also from the Human Rights Act and from every collective and individual employment agreement in this country.