Stewart Barbara: Minimum Wage (Starting-out Wage) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Stewart Barbara: Minimum Wage (Starting-out Wage) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 21 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8869. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
BARBARA STEWART (NZ First) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to oppose this bill the Minimum Wage (Starting-out Wage) Amendment Bill. New Zealand First opposes this bill because it is an out and out attack on young people—the vulnerable young workers who are at just the beginning of their working careers. Cheap labour is not the silver bullet to create jobs which are vanishing every day under this Government. 
 More tax lower wages—that seems to be the way of this National Government. It has raised GST after saying that it would not inflicting pain on those people on fixed incomes. Then it has gone and taxed paper boys another set of young workers. And here it is again launching an attack on our young workers. This is obviously not a Government that is intent on solving the big issues. Job creation for all New Zealanders must be the primary focus of the Government and this bill will not provide additional jobs. 
On this side of the House we are quite concerned for older workers. It is hard enough for anybody over the age of 50 to get a job anyway so how stable will their jobs be? We have heard from the other side of the House that these are hard times for employers. Mike Sabin said that. It is easy for some employers to employ young people at a far cheaper rate particularly in these hard times. 
With this piece of legislation the National Government shows how totally disconnected it is from the harsh realities that are faced by most of our vulnerable young workers. It is really a slap in the face to those young workers. This bill does not affect just teenagers earning a bit of extra pocket money while they are living at home with their parents. Many of them will not have financial support from their families at all. Some of these affected people will for all intents and purposes be independent or trying to be independent. So how are these independent young people any different from people a couple of years older than them? Will these people get a 20 percent discount on their rent? Perhaps a 20 percent discount on their electricity bills? Or even their groceries? No they certainly will not definitely not on their petrol. 
Sue Moroney 
: Could be the “YoungerGold Card”. 
BARBARA STEWART 
: Perhaps we will have to have a “YoungGold Card”. You never know—we could perhaps come up with that. The passing of this legislation is definitely going to make all of these people’s lives 20 percent harder. Their living costs are exactly the same as other older New Zealanders’ living costs so why is this Government so intent on kicking young workers into the gutter especially at a time when people are struggling? In the last year alone we have seen the number of young people looking for work increase from 80000 to 90000—90000 young people not in work or any form of training. It is a real disgrace and a sad indictment on this Government. 
If we are not careful New Zealand will see a bubble of young people going out into the world without any real work experience. What a total waste of a young vital resource that we need here in this country. I do not believe that we should be sending these people off to Australia in ever-increasing numbers. This piece of legislation is not going to help young people despite Mr Auchinvole laughing and smiling about it. This piece of legislation will not encourage young people to go out and seek work. If anything it really encourages them to give up. By the time young people have paid to travel to work in their cars because petrol is not cheap they are worse off than they would be if they were on welfare. 
So where is the incentive for these young people to try to find these nonexistent jobs? And what exactly is the rationale for this change? Where is the demand? Well the Government is claiming that the bill will create more jobs but we have not seen any valid statistics to back up this claim. It claims that reducing the minimum wage for one sector of the population is going to create more jobs. The truth is that this bill will not create more jobs. It is just another hurdle for young people trying to stay afloat in these pressing economic times. We all know that prices are increasing dramatically in every part of the economy. With this piece of legislation this Government is ignoring the plight of hard-working young New Zealanders. It treats them as second-class citizens. 
It is a bit like a  
Back to the Future 
 piece of legislation. We have seen it before. Within living memory it was women who were allowed to be paid less than men for exactly the same work but fortunately those days are passed. We know that it is totally unacceptable to pay one sector of the population a lower wage. It is illegal discrimination. It is very concerning to see ideologically driven policies emerging that would once again treat one part of the labour force worse than the rest. Youth rates will not encourage employers to create additional jobs. It is a sad reality that under this Government there are families who rely on their children working in order to be able to make ends meet. This is the harsh reality for many families—young people working after school bringing the money home so that the families can actually make ends meet. So what good will this change bring to them? What good is it going to do? It is simply going to make their lives harder. And as my colleague Asenati Lole-Taylor said Maori and Pacific Island families will find it very very challenging. 
Before we came into this House I had the opportunity thanks to my colleague to find a good quote from someone whom we more than likely all know of. He is a very successful businessman called Robert Bosch. We no doubt have got dishwashers and fridges in our homes that bear his name. He said: “I don’t pay good wages because I have a lot of money; I have a lot of money because I pay good wages.” I think that is a very good message there. 
New Zealand First believes that all people irrespective of age should be given equal pay for equal work. We believe that this Government is now on a very slippery slope. With this bill the Government takes another step towards a low-wage economy. If this Government believes that reducing the minimum wage for some people will create more jobs perhaps it is keen to abolish it entirely. Is that part of the plan too? 
New Zealand First is disappointed with this bill and quite honestly we cannot support it. We have listened to the National members of the House speaking listening for good reasons to support this legislation but sorry we have not heard any to make us change our mind. Where is this brighter future that National promised us? We keep looking and waiting and looking and waiting but to no avail. The future looks very gloomy for some people and particularly for young people. The horizon is not bright for them. New Zealand First will not be supporting this bill.