Beaumont Carol: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBeaumont Carol: General Debate[Sitting date: 23 October 2013. Volume:694;Page:14201. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour): Well I want to follow my colleague Darien Fenton and talk about what is happening to women in the paid workforce. Certainly women are going backwards under this National Government. Women are not experiencing the brighter future that National promised. National’s rich corporate mates on the other hand of course are getting lots of attention and lots of opportunities but not women seeking to get ahead financially—not women trying to manage paid and unpaid work responsibilities.As others have noted the job situation is dire unemployment remains high and yet National promised 170000 new jobs over 4 years in 2011 and in 2012 managed to muster just 8000.Of course over recent days we have seen workers losing their jobs from a fellmongery in Shannon New Zealand Post workers are hearing today that they will be losing their jobs and the mill workers in Rotorua heard on Monday that they will belosing their jobs—many many workers. I want to convey my concern to those workers and I know just how difficult that will be.It is not only unemployment that is a problem though; underemployment also remains a problem. Over 100000 people want more work. I am sure that the majority of those workers would be women seeking more hours than they currently have. Women are low paid. Women are overrepresented amongst those in low-paid work—certainly at least 60 percent of those on the minimum wage. Of course the Government fails to make any meaningful shift in the minimum wage and fails to commit to a living wage. And who does that affect? Who does that affect? Well of course it affects those women workers but it also affects their families. It has an impact on their lifetime earnings. It means that with an ageing population where women tend to live longer women are more likely to be living in poverty in their old age.What is the Government’s response to low pay? Well John Key thinks it is a great idea actually. He is quoted as saying that driving wages down is a good thing. In the Employment Relations Act changes the attacks on workers’ rights will make the situation worse by undermining collective bargaining. Certainly the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women the international UN committee concerned about women has said that we need to look at the gendered impact of this legislation. What has the Government said? “No action to be taken.”What about pay equity? This is not something that the Government is committed to. The Government says that greater economic independence for women is meant to be a priority but it says that will be done by moving women out of low-paid work rather than by valuing and paying for that work. Well who is going to do the work in aged care for example? When are we going to see that properly valued? There is barely any mention of pay equity on the Ministry of Women’s Affairs website. Certainly the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women again refers to that and again there is no action to be taken.Recently a very brave women Kristine Bartlett won a case against her employer TerraNova Homes and Care an aged-care employer. She earns $14.46 an hour after 20 years’ service in aged care. What is the Government saying? Well the Minister of Women’s Affairs is not interested. She has not briefed the Minister of Labour. She has not even had a conversation with the Minister of Labour about this important issue. The Minister of Labour when questioned in the House just makes jokes. So clearly pay equity is not something that the Government is concerned about.Paid parental leave would help families manage their income when they have a new child. Of course my colleague here Sue Moroney is actively promoting an extension to 26 weeks. There is massive community support for it and it has a majority in this House but no the Government intends to veto that change.I want to talk particularly about industry training because industry training is supposedly how women might move into these non-traditional jobs and yet the numbers do not bear mentioning. The numbers of women in industry training are appalling. Recently when I questioned the Minister on how this lines up with the Better Public Services goal the Canterbury rebuild goal or even the Business Growth Agenda of delivering more skills—the numbers of women in industry training are going down. I just want to identify some of the worst cases. In the building and construction industry 1 percent of trainees in that industry are women. In joinery it is 6 percent. In electricity it is 7 percent. In infrastructure it is 6 percent. And what is the Government doing about it? Well according to the Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment the Ministry of Women’s Affairs is helping here. Well it has done a pamphlet it has done a research paper and it interviewed seven women in the electrical industry. It is a joke.