Collins Judith: Disabled Persons Employment Promotion (Repeal and Related Matters) Bill — First Reading 
Collins Judith: Disabled Persons Employment Promotion (Repeal and Related Matters) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:617;Page:13379] 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 That was a fantastic effort from my colleague Katherine Rich as always. Yet again she hit the nail on the head. The members of this minority Labour Government are just a pack of snobs—they are job snobs. They look at the people who currently work in the sheltered workshops and think that what they are doing looks like demeaning low-grade work—following on from their Minister Ruth Dyson’s description of the work done by women in cleaning jobs as demeaning and low-grade. It is interesting that she is not taking a call on this particular issue. Labour Party members are snobs who think that unless someone has a university degree and a position in the union they are not worth anything. 
I agree with my colleague Katherine Rich that the people who work in these sheltered workshops are on the whole people who are incredibly proud of what they do. So they should be! Work—and that is something the Labour Party would not know much about—is not done just for money. It is also done because it is a good in itself. It teaches people to have self-respect to get out of bed in the morning—something else the Labour Party would not know anything about—to get clean to take responsibility and to be proud of their efforts. 
Not very long ago I saw some people from a sheltered workshop and the person running it on television saying that they would have to shut their doors if this legislation went through. We know this Government does not like families motherhood fatherhood or anything like that. We know it wants people to sit at home all day watching Sky television or some other sort of television. But why would it want to stop these people who are very disabled in many cases and not able to take a full part in other sorts of employment getting the benefit of going to work enjoying the community spirit of the workplace feeling part of a team feeling that they are doing a really good job and helping society and thinking that they are helping their workmates who might need help to do their jobs? Because that is what this bill will do. It is just more legislation that has really nice reasoning behind it except that it will actually stop these people being employed. 
One of the great things in the job of MP is constantly meeting people who overcome life’s challenges. I get to meet a number of people in my electorate who consistently view what we would call disabilities as simply challenges to overcome so that they can continue on in as normal a life as they possibly can. We know that a lot of these people are on invalids benefits and that they are still able to work in the sheltered workshops. They do not earn very much more but they feel they are contributing and that is really important. Why would we want to stop that? It just seems absolute nonsense that we would want to stop these people participating and feeling that they are adding to society rather than being a drain on it as the Labour Party would like them to be. 
How many jobs for basket-weavers is the Government trying to protect out there? How many people living in China for instance where there is no minimum wage is the Government trying to protect by stopping people in the sheltered workshops from working? The Labour Party would rather see people overseas getting the work and benefiting from it than the very disabled people it says it is protecting. It is not protecting them. All it is doing is taking away their jobs and ruining the whole sheltered workshop environment by saying: “You are not wanted because your work is demeaning and low-grade.” 
 Just because those members do low-grade demeaning work as members of the Labour Party why should they inflict that sort of provision on other people? Those people get out of the bed in the morning and go and do their work. They are good citizens; they do not cause any trouble. They are not up and down doing hikoi all over the place. They do not stop the traffic on the Auckland Harbour Bridge. They are nice decent people who are getting on with their jobs and trying to be good citizens. This Labour Party simply wants to stop them doing that. It demeans the people who do this work by telling them that their work is not important—that it is low-grade and demeaning. That term is used by this Government on a constant basis when referring to ordinary working people. 
Katherine Rich 
: It wants everyone to be a brain surgeon. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: It wants everybody to be a brain surgeon or at least a trade union official—and of course the two are at different ends of the scale. It calls those disabled people’s work low-grade and demeaning. Government members sit on the other side of the House and personally attack us every time we get up. They point out the fact that they are—we cannot say “hypocritical” so let us say that their arguments lack conviction. [ 
Interruption 
] It is all of them really Mrs Rich. They are absolutely lacking in conviction. They sit there and abuse us—even demean themselves by abusing us personally. 
Katherine Rich 
: Ruth Dyson has many convictions. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: We understand that Ruth Dyson has many convictions—as Mrs Rich rightly points out. One would think that their arguments would have more conviction. They do not care about the very people for whom they say they are putting this bill through. If it is so important to put this bill through why will it have to wait until 2007? Labour will not be in Government in 2007. I notice that most of the legislation we have these days starts in 2007. 
Phil Heatley 
: Most of the Budget. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: Mr Heatley is in the know. He has seen the leaked documents and tells me that most of the Budget will not come in until 2007. That will be at least 2 years after Labour loses office so those members will not be around to see the effect of this bill will they? They will not be around to see the sheltered workshops being shut. Fortunately we will have a National-led Government that will stop this sort of nonsense going on and allow the sheltered workshops to keep going. 
We see those workshops as a benefit to the community and more important a benefit to the disabled people who currently work in them. We will not stand by and let this Government put through the sort of nonsense it does and leave us to pick up the pieces. We will have to fix this legislation as soon as the 2005 election comes around if not beforehand.