Young Jonathan: Minimum Wage (Contractor Remuneration) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeYoung Jonathan: Minimum Wage (Contractor Remuneration) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 22 July 2015. Volume:707;Page:5269. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): Perhaps I could just address some of the introductory comments from the mover of this bill David Parker when he talked about how the bill previously under the name of Darien Fenton went to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and its members improved it as he said. I am sure there were some elements that they did work on but the report from that committee on the bill at that point in time said that the committee was unable to reach agreement that the bill should be passed. So I believe that the committee at that particular point in time identified some real complexities on why this bill would not work.In fact as we think about it as the honourable member mentioned he drafted the bill and passed it on to the honourable member Darien Fenton to bring it to the House as a member’s bill. At that particular point in time of course the Labour Party was the governing party. So we have a governing party that proposed a bill. The bill went to a committee which we assume it would have had the majority on and it could not get it through the committee. Certainly—[Interruption] All right. Certainly I would say that at that point in time if the member who drafted the bill thought it was such a great bill why did he not make it a Government bill? Why did he not take it to this House as a Government bill instead of passing it on to his colleague?I believe that the Labour Government would have received advice as we have received advice that this is another one of the Hon David Parker’s very complex but unworkable bills just as NZ Power was just as he tried to persuade New Zealanders last year on a phantom promise of a $300 reduction in their power supply costs. When the industry asked for the means by which that could be demonstrated it could not. We have a bill here that is proposing an answer to people who are in difficult situations who are some of our lowest-wage earners. I believe it is another phantom promise. It is a promise that will not be able to be workable.As Mr Parker has said it I understand the intent of this bill. The intent of this bill is to make them look good and us look bad. That is what it is. That is all it is. All it is is political propaganda. Here is a party that in its time of office of 9 years of surplus after surplus after surplus increased the average minimum wage by 56c a year. And as soon as we came into office and that party was in Opposition guess what it pushed for? A $3 jump. Why did it not do that in 2007 or 2008? It is because all it is intent on doing in these sorts of pieces of legislation is pushing out political propaganda. We are the Government that for the first time in 42 years increased the benefit. We are the Government that did that; yet that is the party that claims to be the caring and sharing party. We know that Dr Cullen on Q+A on Sunday said “We should have done more.”—we should have done more. It is because that party really did not want to.What this country needs and has is a plan that is working. This Government’s economic plan over the last 7 years has laid strong foundations.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I am just going to invite the member to address this bill. We did have a general debate this afternoon but we have a specific piece of legislation before the House now and it would be good if we got to it.JONATHAN YOUNG: Yes thank you but often—if I could speak to your point—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): No you cannot Mr Young.JONATHAN YOUNG: If I could say that often in terms of addressing the value of a piece of legislation you have to look at the alternatives and the alternatives in terms of what we are doing for the lowest-income people are significant and what that party is proposing to do is unworkable. There is a great proverb that I think Mr Parker needs to understand and that is that the cleanliness of theory is no match for the mess of reality.This particular piece of legislation is very difficult. The intent I understand and I think we appreciate the intent. The committee was unable to reach agreement that the bill should be passed. The difficulty is in “applying minimum wage calculations to contracting situations.” These are just some of the comments that the previous committee reported back to the House of Parliament: “The bill blurs the distinction between a contract for services (independent contract) and a contract of services (employment contract).”For example let us say that I was going to build a house. In your schedule Mr Parker you put the building industry in there as one of the I guess most vulnerable workforces in the country. That is what you have said. So I would say to a contractor “I want you to build this house and I want you to give me a price.” and he gives me a price but then he gets rained off. But then he decides that what he is going to do is to go on to the site and wait for that rain to break and then he is going to be there on site ready to work. Let us say that somebody is going to paint a wall or paint a fence all right? And then he gets rained off. You have already agreed a price for a certain job to be done all right?Debate interrupted.