Moroney Sue: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMoroney Sue: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate[Sitting date: 26 June 2013. Volume:691;Page:11318. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Supplementary EstimatesSUE MORONEY (Labour):I think anyone listening to this debate must be appalled that a speaker from the Government there to promote her Government’s own Budget could not even get halfway through a 10-minute call before she resumed her seat. There is so little for Nicky Wagner to say that is glowing about her own Government’s Budget that she could not even get to the 2-minute bell before she sat down. I think that that probably just about says it all.But the OECD had a lot more to say today about that Government’s poor performance with the economy because the OECD report actually tells it like it is. It tells us that this is a Government that actually does not have a brighter future at stake for New Zealanders. It tells us that this is a Government that is deliberately putting in policies through its Budget that actually grow inequality in this country. That is not the path to a brighter future. But before I talk too much more about what the OECD had to say I think that we can already see from what is happening in New Zealand that the Government got it wrong. It has got it wrong. We do not have to be academics to know this. We do not have to read great long OECD reports to know this. We can just pick up the newspaper or look on the internet and see that this very day we had 500 job losses announced from New Zealand Post. One hundred and thirty of those jobs were from my city of Hamilton—130 jobs going today in Hamilton alone. Not only does that have severe implications for those 130 workers and their families—so we are talking probably 400 or 500 people who are going to be directly affected by that announcement in Hamilton alone today—but also it has a significant impact on the local Hamilton economy because when those reasonably well-paid decent jobs go the wages of those jobs go from our economy as well. Those 130 workers will no longer have the wages to spend locally. Those wages will disappear from our economy and the very next thing that will happen is that other small businesses will have to make further redundancies in their companies because the economy is in a downward spiral. That is the impact of the lack of a plan from that Government.The previous speaker for the Government made much of the fact that it would be reaching surplus in 2014 or 2015. We agree with that in Labour. We think that it is an important goal. But I think that when National actually gave that commitment to New Zealanders at the last election most New Zealanders expected that the Government would reach that goal by growing the economy—that that is the way the Government would get to surplus by 2014. Well it is not so and the Budget documents expose it. The Government is not going to reach surplus by growing the economy and improving economic growth in New Zealand. The way that it is getting to surplus is actually by keeping ACC levies higher than they need to be. So what the Government has done is reach into the pocket of every worker in New Zealand and every employer in New Zealand and kept their ACC levies—some call it a tax—and kept that tax higher than the ACC wanted it to be. The other day during a select committee hearing we found out how much the Government is taking out of workers’ pockets: $400 million at least is being taken out of workers’ pockets through ACC levies in order to create the illusion of a Budget surplus for that Government in 2014-15 and $150 million is being taken out of the pockets of employers in this country for exactly the same purpose.If that Government understood how to grow the economy it would not have to do that. It would not have to resort to keeping a higher tax on ACC than is necessary. If that Government understood what drives economic growth it would much prefer to see that $500 million to $600 million this year back in the pockets of workers and businesses so that they could spend that money in the economy and actually get the economy moving. But no no no this Government chooses instead to take that out of their pockets and put it in the Government’s accounts to create the illusion of a surplus.One of the main things that the OECD report said today was that the Government’s policy settings are growing inequality in New Zealand. I want to talk about inequality because this week a very important case has gone before the Employment Court. I want to congratulate both the Service and Food Workers Union and a very courageous woman by the name of Kristine Bartlett on her standing up for New Zealand women. She is taking a case to the court around equal pay. She is asking the court to rule on whether it is OK for her to be paid $14.32 an hour as a caregiver in a rest home with 20 years’ service. That is the sort of inequality we see. She has been working for 20 years as a caregiver in a rest home and she is on a little bit above the minimum wage. She is going to court to ask whether that is fair. That woman on her $14.32 an hour has much more courage than the Minister of Women’s Affairs who is the person who is paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to stand up for New Zealand women. Where is she on this issue? Well what Jo Goodhew the Minister of Women’s Affairs has to say to Kristine Bartlett is that if she wants decent pay she should go and do a man’s job. If you want a decent rate of pay Kristine Bartlett according to the Minister of Women’s Affairs go and train to be an electrician go and train to be a plumber but do not do that very important work of caring for people in rest homes.Well I was there from this side of the House and from Labour to congratulate Kristine on her courage because I know the courage and the commitment that it takes to actually be the person who stands up and says that it is not good enough. It is not OK to have the gender pay gap that we have in this country and it is not OK for someone to have worked for 20 years in a field that actually requires a lot of intellectual capability is a very physical job is a very emotional job and is a very very skilled job and here she is on $14.32 an hour.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.SUE MORONEY: Prior to the dinner break I was talking about what a sham the idea is that the Government is going to get to surplus by the financial year 2014-15. It is a sham because the New Zealand voting public thought they were being promised that the National Government was going to do that by lifting economic performance and by economic growth. Now they have found out that they have been duped because in fact the National Government is putting its hands into workers’ pockets and employers’ pockets and getting that surplus through having higher ACC levies than ACC itself said it needed to be able to pay for the cost of injuries and rehabilitation in this country. So it is a sham from the outset.Then I moved on to talk about the fact that the OECD today raised concerns about the Government’s policies that are creating more inequality in this country and that are actually moving resources from the people who need resources to those who do not. We saw that with the Government’s tax cuts. It was the wealthy people who did the best out of them and it was the poorest people who struggle on a day-to-day basis to get by. As a result of that we find that a sole rest home worker with her union is having to go to court to try to contest equal pay to try to contest whether the Equal Pay Act means that she should be getting paid more than $14.32 an hour after 20 years of service at a rest home doing some of the most skilled work and some of the most valuable work in thissociety looking after older people—and yes Mr Hayes that is difficult work. It is physically challenging it is emotionally challenging it is intellectually challenging and it ought to be paid more than just a scrape above the minimum wage.Meanwhile the Minister of Women’s Affairs has no plan to actually value low-paid work. In fact the Minister of Finance has said that he thinks that it is a good thing that we have low wages in New Zealand. Bill English said that he likes the idea of having a 30 percent wage gap between Australia and New Zealand. He thinks that that gives us an economic advantage. That is the sort of flawed thinking that has got this country into the mess we are in today.