Lees-Galloway Iain: Minimum Wage (Starting-out Wage) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Lees-Galloway Iain: Minimum Wage (Starting-out Wage) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 19 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8638. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North) 
: 
 Who remembers that fateful night when the sword finally fell on Don Brash and John Key moved as swiftly as possible to see Bill English off at the pass? He came out and he announced that he was ambitious for New Zealand. He was ambitious for New Zealand. Well where has all the ambition gone? Where has that ambition gone? Because this Government has lost its focus its ambition on getting people into jobs and making sure people are paid well for those jobs. There is no job strategy. There is no strategy for growing jobs. There is no strategy for growing our economy. The only thing it can think of to try to get young people into work is to cut their wages. 
Well David Bennett knows. David Bennett knows that that is old thinking. That is thinking from the past because David Bennett said when he was speaking against this exact proposal when it was proposed by Roger Douglas: “It is looking at things in a historical perspective. Well the world has moved on.” Well in fact the world has moved on but all this National Government can do—so bereft of ideas that it is—is to look back into history for failed examples of ways to try to get people into work. It failed before and it will fail again. David Bennett knew that. He still knows it and yet for some reason he will be voting for this bill to carry on today. Under National’s watch 72000 young Kiwis aged between 18 and 30 have headed to Australia looking for better job opportunities. What else are they looking for? Better wages of course because in Australia they do pay a decent wage. They will get a decent wage and there is actually a strategy in New Zealand to get more people into higher-skilled better-paying jobs. 
This Minimum Wage (Starting-out Wage) Amendment Bill is a bill that simply reflects National’s absolute loss of ambition. It has no plan to get young people working. It has no plan to get young people into apprenticeships. It has no plan to get people higher skills. It has no plan to develop a high-skill high-wage economy. What does it have instead? This meagre pathetic bill which absolutely lacks any sort of ambition. But do not ask me. Do not ask me; ask David Bennett. Ask David Bennett who said: “We are denying them their success by holding them at a lower rate than their ability shows as individuals.” and that actually is why Labour fundamentally opposes this bill. It allows a form of discrimination that absolutely is not justified. It says to a young person that because of their age and their age alone they can be discriminated against. [ 
Interruption 
] Mr Sabin? 
Mike Sabin 
: I said that member would just hate to see any growth in job numbers. 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY 
: Ah! Mike Sabin says that we would hate to see any growth in job numbers. Mr Sabin where are the jobs? Where are the jobs Mr Sabin? There are no jobs. That is exactly what this Minimum Wage (Starting-out Wage) Amendment Bill reflects. If there were jobs for people to go to there would be no necessity for this bill at all. If there were jobs then there would be proper competition in the market for wages and people would be working. This will not create new jobs. This will simply shift older people out of the workforce because employers will be able to take a job that they offer to someone who actually qualifies for the full adult rate and give that job to a young person who does not qualify for the full adult rate. It does not create new jobs. The only way a young person will get a job as a result of this bill is if somebody else is pushed out of the labour market Mr Sabin. 
Mike Sabin 
: Rubbish. 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY 
: That is the only way. 
Mike Sabin 
: Nonsense. 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY 
: Mr Sabin can sit there and say “Rubbish.” and “Nonsense.” as much as he likes but he knows it is not true. He has not actually come up with a single argument in favour of this bill. 
Mike Sabin 
: There’s plenty of employers who want to give a young person a chance out there clearly. 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY 
: If plenty of employers want to give a young person a chance why not pay them for the work that they will do? Why not pay them the rate that they deserve Mr Sabin? We are not talking about a charity here. We are talking about paid employment—the dignity of proper paid employment where a young person can go to work and know that they will be treated in the same way as anybody else in that job. That is the dignity that we are talking about not about saying to young people that they are second-class citizens and do not deserve to get the rate of pay that anybody else in that workplace would be getting. This bill reflects a soft lack of ambition from the National Party that wants to trap young people in low-skill and low-wage jobs.