Chadwick Steve: Minimum Wage and Remuneration Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Chadwick Steve: Minimum Wage and Remuneration Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:654;Page:3903] 
Hon STEVE CHADWICK (Labour) 
: 
 I am pleased to take a call especially after that rave from Allan Peachey. I had not heard him before tea but I thank him for addressing history. The member was not here in those 9 years under Labour when we were an incredibly busy Government working on supporting workers’ rights in this House every day that we came down to the Chamber. 
I thank Darien Fenton. She is a Kiwi battler. She has been out there working for vulnerable workers and contract workers to make sure that their rights are protected. It was Darien and other members in the House including Ministers of Labour like Trevor Mallard Ruth Dyson and Margaret Wilson who made sure we addressed the real issues of protecting workers and of giving a decent salary for a decent day’s work. 
This Minimum Wage and Remuneration Amendment Bill addresses an anomaly that has been around in labour law since 1983. Labour could not do it all even in 9 years because we were addressing a decade when workers had been squeezed to the bottom of the heap with only an 87c increase in the minimum wage over 9 years. When we got into Government those people did not even know what the value of a unionised workplace was or what benefits they could achieve with union advocacy and support working with both them and the employer to make sure that they got a decent wage. 
I think it is great that Darien has picked up this little loophole and brought it forward. It is a sad reflection that the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee could not agree and that was probably because an election was imminent and its members were not prepared to put themselves on the line. At least ACT is consistent in its position on the bill but I find it absolutely ironic that when we saw the minimum wage being increased by National by I think $3.72 a week—a measly $3.72—National members said that they had done it. They said that they had raised the minimum wage and that was it. I would say that for as long as they are on the Government benches that will probably be the last time that we see them increase the minimum wage. We will not stand here and do nothing about that sort of inaction and arrogance from the Government of the day. 
I think we have to look at the work patterns of contract workers that are outlined in proposed new schedule 2 in Supplementary Order Paper 4. There would not be a person in this Chamber who does not recall informal contract relationships with perhaps a gardener a person who comes in to do the cooking a nanny or whatever worker any member in this Chambers uses especially now that there is tax relief for the top earners in the country. It is very much those workers who are the most vulnerable and here we are sorting it out with a graduated scale so that they get the protection of a minimum wage moving very gently up from $13 an hour in 2009 to $15 by 2011. It is not a big ask but it is too much for the Government to stand. Those members say that they have done it and that they have fixed the increase to the minimum wage rate at $3.72 a week and those workers are lucky if they can even keep their jobs now. 
Tomorrow we will hear about a jobs Budget. I bet we will hear about a jobs Budget. I have to talk about a vaccinator who gave me a flu vaccine. That person said: “I am on the 9-day working week. I am doing this today as a volunteer because my contractor”—who got the contract to do the vaccinations for people like the members in this House—“did not pay me and told me that if I want to keep my job as a contractor and keep in the loop to be able to earn for 9 days a week then I had to do the job on the 10th day for nothing.” I found that simply appalling and I think that the members here would too. I have reported that that is an absolute exploitation of workers. 
The contract workers that Darien is trying to support in this bill are the vulnerable workers. Everybody in this House understands that those workers are holding on for grim death to their jobs as we see this economic recession start to impact on workers who once were not vulnerable workers but worked a decent 10-day fortnight.