Fenton Darien: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Fenton Darien: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:670;Page:16529] 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 In the next month my son and his partner will join the exodus to live and work overseas. Like many of his generation he is going for better opportunities but that is not the only reason. He and his partner are tertiary qualified and both have good and relatively well-paid jobs. So it is not money that is driving them away; it is a lack of confidence in the future of our country under John Key’s Government and a growing belief that they would have a better future elsewhere. 
John Key promised the New Zealand electorate in 2008 that his Government would stop our children leaving the country. He talked it up he melodramatised it and he said he would stop our best and brightest leaving our shores. But only 2 days ago the  
Weekend Herald  
reported that there was a net loss of almost 22000 Kiwis to Australia last year. All the signs are there that this exodus will only get worse. So that is a broken promise among the silly slogans the empty promises of John Key and this National Government. John Key promised there would be a step change. We still do not know what that means. He promised there would be a brighter future. He promised that New Zealand incomes would catch up with Australia’s. He promised to tackle what he called the growing underclass in our country and what a sad indictment there was about that this week with the story about Aroha and her mother. 
The Prime Minister’s statement to Parliament today signals a Government that has run out of ideas if indeed it ever had any. He is finding out the awful truth: promises are easy to make but it takes a lot more than words to deliver on them. There is no brighter future for example for the 2500 families on the North Shore and Rodney who have had to apply for non-benefit special-needs grants in the last year. I think that is symbolic of just how widely and deeply felt this Government’s inaction has spread. We are talking about the North Shore and Rodney the home of five National MPs including the Prime Minister. There is no brighter future for families who are struggling with the rising cost of living which has actually been caused by National. GST and rents have gone up rates are going up general practitioners’ fees are going up early childhood education costs are rising petrol has gone up ACC costs are going up and power prices are going up. How are families supposed to cope with these increases when their wages have hardly moved and in many cases have actually gone backwards? 
There is no brighter future for the 178000 people who have no jobs. There is no brighter future for the 100-odd workers who were laid off in the wood industry over the holiday period when John Key was in Hawaii sunning himself. There is little hope for the thousands of workers who have lost their jobs in the manufacturing sector during the period of this Government. Every worker who loses a job represents a social tragedy. There is the humiliation and loss of self-esteem from getting the sack in the first place. There are the consequences for a family’s income and the indignity and degrading experience of having to seek assistance from Work and Income. There are the hundreds of job applications that are never answered or even acknowledged. There are the little bits of work from time to time—casual temporary minimum wage jobs—as people scratch around to make something in order to put food on the table. 
I think we all agree that a job is the best poverty eradication measure available provided that it is a decent well-paid job where training skills recognition and the contribution of workers are acknowledged as an important part of our economy. But unfortunately this Government lacks the imagination to really develop job creation and stimulus. It has decided that New Zealand workers are lazy untrustworthy and need to be punished through harsher labour laws. National really believes that the removal of rights for all workers in their first 90 days of employment will encourage employers to take workers on. It cites research that is quite frankly baloney and it absolves itself of any responsibility for skills training for industry development and for doing something about the large and growing number of our young people who are not in a job or even in training. 
I note after the contribution from the Minister of Labour Kate Wilkinson that in the UK David Cameron the Prime Minister is now proposing a 2-year trial period. The UK has had a 1-year trial period for years and David Cameron is using exactly the same language that we are hearing from that Minister about it. Obviously a 1-year period did not work so there will be something else. 
National is developing a narrative that says employers are saviours and workers particularly low-paid workers should be grateful for any job and if they are not the Government will punish them. Not all employers agree with this and I want to make that clear. I know that since we have had the 90-day employment law many employers have entered into agreements with unions because they say they do not need to have those sorts of tools. They have relationships with unions and they have the ability to think beyond harsh measures like that. 
But this Government is now telling workers in the State sector—and has been for at least the last 2 years—that they are worth nothing either that they can expect nothing from this Government and again that they should be grateful to keep their jobs. No one has a problem with regard to improving efficiency and productivity but the National-ACT Government believes that a job in the public sector is not a real job. I ask the Government to tell that to the nurses and see how it gets on. 
I heard the Greens and the Maori Party calling today for there to be a higher minimum wage. I have to say it seems as though the phone is off the hook when it comes to the Maori Party talking to National about such important measures. But I say good on the Greens and the Maori Party because Labour agrees with them. If Labour had not been in power for the previous 9 years I believe that the minimum wage would still be sitting at around $10 an hour and $7 an hour for under 20-year-olds. I am grateful for small mercies: at least the minimum wage for our lowest paid has not gone backwards. But how will a 1.9 percent increase in pay cover 4 percent inflation? That is all that workers on the minimum wage will receive. That 25c an hour will not add up to the cost of a litre of milk at the end of the day let alone a block of cheese at the end of the week. We are talking about an increase of $8 a week. A person who works full-time on the minimum wage will now receive $437.24 a week after tax while John Key gave himself and his wealthy mates $1000 extra per week in tax cuts. [ 
Interruption 
] I tell National members not to lecture members on this side of the House about the minimum wage. 
It is no wonder that more and more people in New Zealand are talking about the growing inequalities in New Zealand and no wonder that young people like my son and his partner are feeling disillusioned. John Key promised that life would be better for all Kiwis under National but his bonus for those who slave for the minimum wage is $8 a week. It is $8 and then we have to add in all of the extra costs that those workers have to fork out on. The increases in the cost of power that workers read about in the notices that they received in the mail in the last week will absorb that $8 a week for a start. That promise has been broken as well. John Key said all New Zealanders would be better off under National. They are not; things are getting worse not better. 
John Key also promised that we would catch up with Australia. Its minimum wage is now NZ$19.75 an hour—more than 50 percent greater than our minimum wage—and that is just the minimum wage. Actually most industries in Australia have a higher minimum wage set in its modern awards system based around the industries. So again we can see why more and more people are moving over there. 
What is really galling for low-paid workers is that when South Canterbury Finance needed to be bailed out money was no problem. Money was no object when John Key gave tax cuts to the wealthiest people in the country and gave himself $1000 a week. Money was no object when the Americans came calling with their threats about  
The Hobbit 
 nor was the removal of rights for thousands of workers in the video and film production industry. That was not just for the actors but for the tradespeople the cleaners and the catering workers. It was a disgusting sell-out of New Zealand sovereignty and a sombre message for New Zealand workers. 
Hon Dr Wayne Mapp 
: It was not. Labour was prepared to sell out the whole industry. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: It was a disgusting sell-out I say to Dr Mapp. But for this Government money is always a problem when it comes to the lower-paid and the struggling middle-income families in New Zealand. Money is always a problem for them but not for the better-off. The message to the large number of New Zealanders in this situation is that their contribution does not matter. So our children will leave because John Key’s claim that he is ambitious for New Zealand has been shown to be just a lot of hot air.