Fenton Darien: Address in Reply — Presentation to Governor-General 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Fenton Darien: Address in Reply — Presentation to Governor-General 
[Sitting date: 28 February 2012. Volume:677;Page:583. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 After that lecture from the Minister for Social Development I rise to give my strong support to the amendment in the name of David Shearer and I say I really resent being lectured to by that Minister. It is that Minister who had all the benefits and support when she found herself in trouble and now she stands in this House and tells everybody what they should be doing when she pulled up the ladder after her.  
This Government campaigned on building a brighter future. We were promised a bright future in 2008 but we are still waiting and the question on everyone’s lips now is whether we will ever get there—whether we will ever get there. I have to say that the people of New Zealand are extremely generous. During the election campaign they took into account the terrible couple of years that we have had the awful tragedies the country has suffered in Christchurch and the tragedy at Pike River mine. They have given the Government another chance but the Government seems intent on squandering the goodwill of New Zealanders and testing people to their limits particularly when it comes to asset sales.  
The bottom line is that New Zealanders do not want their assets sold but the Government is not listening. Its whole economic programme for the next 3 years is based on flogging off assets. The reality is that the Government has no other plan so it is stuck with it and that is why the Government is not listening. The world has changed but National’s answers have not. What we are seeing now is a Government that has circled the wagons and is into managing economic decline. How sad is that? It has given up. It is into dumbing down the expectations of Kiwis and blaming those who are hardest hit.  
Kiwis are voting with their feet and who can blame them? Over 113000 Kiwis have left for Australia since John Key promised us all that our kids would be kept at home. In fact last year was the highest ever recorded net migration of people to Australia: 36900 people. Under this Government’s watch unemployment has increased by 50 percent leaving 157000 New Zealanders out of work. The redundancies the closures and the lay-offs just keep coming. John Key promised to close the wage gap with Australia. The fact is that since he came to office the gap has massively increased and nothing is happening on that front. The Department of Labour told us in the financial review the other day that it has done no work on that for the last 2 years. It has given up on it. I have to say that the paltry increase to the minimum wage announced a couple of weeks ago was a wasted opportunity. In real terms that increase of 50c an hour taking the minimum wage to $13.50 makes someone on the minimum wage just 20c an hour better off since National’s first minimum wage raise in April 2009.  
On Thursday morning this week 1500 caregivers who work for Oceania Group aged-care facilities across New Zealand—1500 caregivers who look after our older relatives the people we love and care for and whom we want to be cared for—will reluctantly take strike action. These are the caregivers as I said who do a wonderful job looking after our much-loved older family members yet some are paid just 11c above the minimum wage. This says an awful lot about how this Government and how we as a country value older people and a lot about the Government’s attitude to those who are most vulnerable.  
The Government missed an opportunity with the minimum wage increase to address soaring income inequality and assist stretched families who are struggling to make ends meet. It could have increased the minimum wage—it should have increased the minimum wage—to $15 an hour. At a time when poverty and its impact on families and children in New Zealand is a major concern and we have the Government crying crocodile tears about it it could have taken that step and that would have been a significant step in addressing income inequality.  
Family incomes under this Government have dropped 4.7 percent in real terms since 2009 with inflation outstripping income growth. Families now have to spend 7.4 percent more on rent alone compared with last year. Fifty-three percent of New Zealand families now say they are barely able or are unable to meet their basic needs as housing costs continue to rise and pay packets shrink. John Key’s 2010 tax cuts increased the difference in take-home pay between someone on $30000 a year and someone on $150000 a year by $135 a week and that had an even worse effect when you take into account the GST increase. Chief executive officers in New Zealand in the top 48 listed companies and State-owned enterprises received an average pay increase of $202000 in 2010 on an average income of $1.6 million a year. Something is deeply wrong in New Zealand but we are seeing nothing from John Key’s National Government to address this huge problem—this growing problem—of poverty and inequality.  
John Key has admitted he could not live on the minimum wage but he expects others to. Of course the Government will expect our young people—our 16 and 17-year-olds and some 18 and 19-year-olds—to live on a lower minimum wage because it intends to drop it to 80 percent of the minimum wage. It calls it a starting-out wage. It will be $10.80 an hour. How can anyone live on that?  
An immediate increase in the statutory minimum wage to $15 an hour would have been a first step in overcoming the rampant inequality of poverty that we are seeing. It is not a problem with beneficiary families; it is a problem with working families. Go to any Salvation Army and it will tell you that they are the people coming through the door. They cannot earn enough to feed their families. That is where the problem is. We have a vicious circle of low wages and we have a circle of low productivity. The Government likes to talk about increasing productivity but it is going to have to do an awful lot more if it is serious about that and if it is serious about what it says is its commitment to better jobs and higher wages.  
I had to laugh at the Prime Minister’s cheeky answer this afternoon when he started talking about Labour’s policy for 1970s industrial relations. Can I say that what we are seeing is the worst of industrial relations at the moment. We are seeing 1990s industrial relations— 
Chris Hipkins 
: 1920s industrial relations. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: —1920s; that is right—with 750 meatworkers about to be locked out absolutely brutally. It is brutal. They work in small towns. They work in small towns like Moerewa and Wairoa and those communities absolutely rely on those meatworks to help the community feed its families. What they are seeing is a belief in this Government that somehow you can impose greater productivity from the top down. Let me tell you you cannot just tell people they have to be more productive. What the Government is doing will deliver more of the same results: wages lagging productivity falling behind and people continuing to leave for better opportunities overseas.  
As I have said I think the National Government has given up. It brags about our low wages. It continues its search for more flexibility in the workplace as outlined by the Prime Minister in his speech despite it undermining job security decent work and decent wages. We have yet to see any sustainable improvement in our productivity levels and the relative decline in living standards—particularly compared with Australia—has become a brutal reality for many Kiwis who work hard but just cannot get ahead. There is nothing on offer from the Government in this space and there is even less for those hard-working people who are self-employed or contracted who have to fill out the GST on the table at night. There is nothing for them. They are among some of the lowest paid but this Government is ignoring them as well. So no wonder the grass seems greener on the other side.