Gosche Mark: Minimum Wage (New Entrants) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Gosche Mark: Minimum Wage (New Entrants) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:641;Page:11606] 
Hon MARK GOSCHE (Labour—Maungakiekie) 
: 
 It is a widely held view that dinosaurs are extinct but we sit every day and look at them across the House. The last speaker was the “Mapposaurus”. I want to comment on a couple of his points. Do members remember the National Party leader— 
Darren Hughes 
: Which one? 
Hon MARK GOSCHE 
: Probably all of them. They have had so many I cannot remember. They wail and gnash their teeth about the low wages in New Zealand compared to Australia and they worry about the low-paid and the underclass. We just heard about that from the “Mapposaurus”. Let us have a look at the truth. Who was the Government in 1994? I think it was National. I say to Dr Mapp that the youth minimum wage—and one had to be 20 to earn the adult wage in 1994—was $3.68 an hour under that National Government. Adults were really well off; they got $6.12.5! 
Let us go forward a bit to 1997. There was as we heard influence from New Zealand First and they put it up to $7 in 1997. So it languished at $6.25 or $6.37.5. Then it leapt up to $7 because as Peter Brown told us New Zealand First put the National Party’s arm up its back. In 1998 it was $7. In 1999 it was $7. What were those under-20-year-olds—they could have been 19 years and 9 months—earning under the National Government? They were earning $4.20 an hour. In 1999 if one was a 19-year-old working in a factory a shop or a fast-food chain one was earning $4.20 an hour. That is what the National Government did to this country. Alongside that was the Employment Contracts Act. Now National members are wailing and gnashing their teeth and saying the wages in New Zealand are too low compared with Australia. Well we have done a lot about that during our time in Government. 
We have seen the age for the adult minimum wage come down to 18. Did the National Party members support that? No they voted against it. They wailed and gnashed their teeth every time we put the minimum wage up. They are still doing so today. They do not support the minimum wage going up to $12 as we have heard from speakers in the National Party and they certainly do not support young workers getting a decent wage either. But they will continue to tell people they are concerned about low wages and the underclass and they will try to pretend they would do something about it. We know what they would do. They would reverse this measure would they not I ask Dr Mapp. Or would it be a case of “me too” like John Key does with everything else. National members wail and say there will be displacement if young workers get the same pay as adults and they will not get jobs. Well those members should look back at what happened when we changed that law to make the age for the adult minimum wage 18 years of age. Did it happen? No it did not. The statistics heard by the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee which National members might choose to ignore showed that there was actually no displacement for 18 and 19-year-olds. In fact the number of hours they worked went up. 
The National Party hates facts getting in the way of its dinosaur views but the select committee that dealt with this legislation was interested in listening to the views of employers and unions and as a result the bill was amended. I listened particularly to small employers because small employers came along in their droves and said they actually ended up paying their workers above the minimum wage fairly quickly after they started work because they wanted to reward them for the extra effort and the knowledge they picked up in the first few months of employment. A lot of small employers said that. Small employer after small employer from around New Zealand said: “We do not always keep our people on the minimum wage as the law allows us to because we think they should get paid for the work they do and the skills they acquire.” That is exactly what this bill actually picks up on. 
It is interesting that many of the large employers—the fast-food chains etc—simply pay it because the law allows them to. They can afford to pay more because a number of them we were told by submitters do not pay youth rates at all regardless of age. They are the large employers. They said they rejected that and would pay those people as the law allows them to. The vast majority of those large employers in the fast-food and hospitality sector pay it because they can; not because they need to but because the law allows it. 
So I think this is a very important bill and a very important step forward for workers in this country as are the increases to the minimum wage that this Government has put through every year since we became Government. I just remind members again that $4.20 was the youth rate for a 19-year-old under National back in 1999 and the adult rate which had sat still for 3 years was $7 an hour. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: So why is everyone going to Australia? Answer that! 
Hon MARK GOSCHE 
: Dr Mapp and his mates if they had the chance would do it all over again. They would revert to that sort of dinosaur thinking of not liking workers and of not liking unions and they have always passed laws that prove that. That is why National is voting against the bill today. 
I want to talk to another party that is also saying it will vote against the bill the Maori Party. We have heard today the name of Syd Jackson and I send my condolences to his whanau. I worked with Syd for many years in the trade union movement. In fact the union that I represented before coming here amalgamated the Clerical Workers Union into our organisation as a result of the ravages that the Employment Contracts Act wreaked upon the membership of that union. I say to members of the Maori Party that if they had been able to talk to Syd now—and obviously they cannot do so—he would have told them one thing that he learnt as a trade union official and practised every day of the week in representing clerical workers who were not industrially strong and were the types of workers who worked in very small workplaces. The job he did every day required compromise and Syd would have been able to tell members of the Maori Party that if he were here today and I will say it to them on his behalf. There are times when one demands 100 percent and when one cannot get it as he would have known and as I knew 95 percent becomes the reality and one grabs it with both hands. 
Young Maori and Pacific people who go to the local schools in my community of South Auckland are walking around wearing badges celebrating the passing of this bill and the Maori Party will be on record as having voted against it. I ask members of the Maori party to rethink that position tonight because there will be a vote fairly shortly and I would rather see that party which is voting against the bill coming over to the side voting for it because the Maori Party stands for the principles of the bill and it would be a shame not to have that on record. I understand all about trying to be 100 percent on this issue and I sometimes wish that that could happen too but we have a very workable compromise and it is one that should be celebrated—and it is being celebrated on the streets of South Auckland by young Maori and Pacific workers and by other young workers as well. I really would like to see the Maori Party change its position tonight and vote with the rest of us on this. I understand the desire to have 100 percent on this issue but Syd would tell the members of the Maori Party that that was not something he achieved very often as a representative of clerical workers. It was the same for me when I represented service workers who had very little industrial power. It is something we learn a lot about in the industrial relations world particularly if we are representing the weak the vulnerable and the hard to organise which I have done for just about all of my working life. 
I congratulate Sue Bradford and I congratulate all of the parties who are supporting the bill. The bill has in my belief listened to the views of New Zealand and that includes the small employers who said they would pay more but who wanted a little bit of time upfront to train those workers in the soft skills of customer relations etc. The bill recognises that but fundamentally it very much shows the divide in this House between those who are here to seek justice on behalf of working people and make sure they get a fair deal and a fair wage for the work they do and that lot over there—the dinosaurs who still remain running around this earth—called the National Party. 
National members will always oppose this sort of legislation because at the end of the day they could not care less about the exploitation of young workers old workers Maori workers Pacific workers—any workers. They actually stand for that exploitation. Every bit of legislation National has ever passed in this House in terms of industrial relations tells us that and those members oppose every bit of legislation we put up to turn the clock back on their stuff as well. They will always be the same. That is why they are the dinosaurs of this nation and that is why they will not support this bill. But Labour will proudly support it alongside the Greens New Zealand First United Future and others and I would really be keen to see the Maori Party vote with us on this one as well.