Simmonds PennyPENNY SIMMONDS (National—Invercargill): Well that caught me a little bit unawares Dr Anae Ha ha! I rise somewhat reluctantly again for I don't know how many times tonight on this to speak in support of the Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlements Amendment Bill. A name that actually we did spend some time on because as my colleague the Hon Michael Woodhouse pointed out over and over the pay equity bit of it was done by the National Government back in 2017 with the $2 billion pay out. And so in fact this time there is no pay equity component to it. And the other thing that actually I thought was missing from this title was that these workers really are caregivers. They are caregivers to our most vulnerable and I'm not sure that support workers" does justice in describing them.We have talked about the five years and quite frankly this has been sloppy and shoddy and I'm sure there are a few backbenchers over there hanging their heads in embarrassment over this. It should not have been five years sitting abeyance like this. There is a thing called "bring up" in your Outlook; you might want to investigate how to use bring up so that this doesn't happen again because it should have been a simple process. In fact if I was going to borrow some words that we frequently hear come out of Minister Little's mouth it would be "five years of neglect—five years of neglect." So perhaps just reflect on that a little bit: the five years of neglect that did not get on to normalising a bargaining process for these care workers these support workers who deserved to have a greater level of certainty. And it beggars belief that a health ministry a Government and unions didn't bring this up; it actually took the employers the aged-care sector to bring this up. So there must be some pretty embarrassed people around thinking "How could this possibly happen?" And I said it right at the start. I shook my head as a new MP how astonishing it could possibly be that this could happen.So as we've been moving through this bill I've been reflecting on the associations that I have with these care workers across a range of areas that I'm involved with. I think of all the care workers in the aged-care sector. And look we've canvassed how much that sector is suffering at the moment and I'll come back to that a little later but also I reflect on the care workers that we see in a number of the disabled residential facilities and the wonderful work that many of the care workers do there. I want to particularly acknowledge the ones that I had a lot to do with at Bainfield Park in Invercargill—an absolutely fabulous residential facility for people with disabilities. I just want to acknowledge the wonderful work that they and their staff do. But I also think of all those that go into homes all around the country where there are people suffering from different frailties from disabilities from injuries from getting older and they require the support of these care workers and they are under tremendous pressure often getting from one place to another. I've seen them take time to have a chat and do a little bit more than just the caregiving role but actually extend some friendship and some much needed companionship to the people that they are working for.And so it really is important. I know there's been somewhat glib comments made about being the champions of the workers but I hope there isn't anyone in this House that isn't the champion of our care workers in this country. They do a marvellous job under really trying circumstances. So I guess that's where I have some real concerns at how disrespectful this process has been to them. The process has been disrespectful—the fact that they have not had any say in the process they have been given or imposed a settlement of 4.6 percent and we've all canvassed how that is well below the inflation rate. So these workers that we've acknowledged are at the lower end of the pay rates they have been given less than inflation rates and that has got to be a concern. I am at a loss as to why a Labour Government would do that to these workers when the hard work was done back in 2017 by the National Government when the large amount the $2 billion was put in to get that pay equity.The other thing that I'm really concerned about is the impact on the aged-care sector. So our aged-care sector is on its knees at the moment whether this Government wants to recognise that or not. A number of us have been liaising on various occasions with our individual aged-care providers but collectively my colleague Joseph Mooney and the Hon Michael Woodhouse have spent time with this sector and they are seriously in trouble in terms of their staffing and being able to provide the services that they need.Now they face all sorts of increases in their costs just as households have: so increases in their power bills increases in the cost of running their vans the diesel and the petrol for their vans increases in food increases in medical supplies maintenance of their facilities. So they've had all these increases and they've been given a 1.9 percent increase by this Government—1.9 percent. And I'm not sure how much more this Government thinks they can squeeze blood out of that stone because what we're hearing is that this sector is on its knees. We're hearing big providers that have been providing these services for 100 years are running significant deficits—$1 million deficits. So when we couldn't really get a sense of whether there was going to be more on top of that 1.9 or whether in fact the Minister thinks that 1.9 can cope with this increase of 4.6 percent for what makes up the bulk of their workforce—whether he thinks they can cope with that—or whether in fact those providers are going to have to go back and redo their budgets and try and squeeze something more out somewhere else to stop their deficit blowing out any further. So I think this Government by its five years of neglect have been disrespectful and have put those workers those caregivers in a position where they are going to have absolutely no say over whether they accept their 4.6 percent or not and they are going to put all those employers who have a workforce made up predominantly of care workers in a position where they thought they were facing a deficit because they'd been given so much less than inflation but they're now going to be facing an even greater deficit. So sloppy shoddy and having implications across workers employers whole sectors. There should be an awful lot of heads being hung low over that side of the House. Thank you Madam Speaker."