Hipkins Chris: Minimum Wage and Remuneration Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Hipkins Chris: Minimum Wage and Remuneration Amendment Bill — In Committee 
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CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 Supplementary Order Paper 13 is about political commitment to the minimum wage. I was disappointed to hear Michael Woodhouse refer to it as “dodgy democracy”. He will be interested to know that the wording was drafted by a National Government in relation to superannuation. If it was dodgy democracy when it came to superannuation why did National introduce and vote for it? Clearly National members did not think that it was dodgy democracy when it related to superannuation so why should it be dodgy democracy when it relates to the minimum wage? It is because National members do not have a commitment to the minimum wage. This Supplementary Order Paper is fundamentally about commitment. 
The arguments that National members have put forward for not voting in favour of giving contractors the minimum wage just do not stack up. Let us take them one at a time. First of all let us talk about the compliance costs. In an earlier speech I talked about the compliance costs that this legislation would load on to businesses—and found that there really are none. Businesses pretty much already have to take all the compliance measures they would need to adhere to under this Minimum Wage and Remuneration Amendment Bill. There is a perception that the number of hours worked would increase because workers would not work efficiently if they were paid on an hourly rate rather than a fixed-sum contract and would have no incentive to work faster. But that was covered by the amendments—there was a provision that stated that people who unreasonably drag out their working hours do not need to be paid for them. That situation is covered. 
Fundamentally the issue comes back to whether the parties in Parliament believe in a minimum wage. This Supplementary Order Paper gives parties an opportunity to say to New Zealanders that they believe or do not believe in a minimum wage. National’s track record suggests that it does not believe in a minimum wage because during its last 9 years in office it increased the minimum wage by 87c as opposed to the $5 increase under the 9 years of the previous Labour Government. 
So much for National’s ambition for New Zealand! So much for closing the wage gap with Australia! John Key said at the Westpac Stadium that he did not want New Zealanders to work in Australia yet people can earn significantly more money in Australia than they can in New Zealand. The minimum wage is higher in Australia. The Minimum Wage and Remuneration Amendment Bill would do something about that by increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour. That is lower than the ILO recommends but National will still vote against it. National is saying to the lowest-paid workers that if they want a better fairer deal and want to earn more they should move to Australia. Have things not changed dramatically in the 6 months since National was elected? National has compounded the problem for low-paid workers by taking away their tax cuts and giving them to those workers on the highest incomes. National took away tax cuts from the people on the minimum wage and gave them to the people at the highest end of the income spectrum. Of course people on very very low wages will not get any tax cuts at all because they do not earn even the minimum wage. That is disgraceful. 
Tau Henare talked earlier this evening about dignity and he was absolutely right that this bill is about dignity. It is about the dignity of people who do not earn the minimum wage of $12.50 an hour—there is nothing dignified about that. There is nothing undignified about delivering fast-food and we should not ridicule people because of their jobs. Delivering fast-food is a legitimate job and we should not ridicule people for it. There is nothing dignified about doing it for 5 or 6 bucks an hour. Those people are entitled to earn the minimum wage and so are the people who work hard delivering pamphlets and newspapers. They should be entitled to earn the minimum wage and we in this Chamber should not ridicule them. Darien Fenton talked about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of decency and fairness and about just remuneration as an integral part of decency and fairness as required under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 
One reason why this amendment bill is important is that it highlights the contrasting values on each side of the Chamber. National’s values are all about privilege; they are all about the people at the top of the economic heap. We in Labour believe that every Kiwi should get a fair go—and a fair go at $12.50 an hour is still pretty minimal. I have yet to hear an argument from any National member as to why somebody should not earn the minimum wage for doing a hard day’s work. I have yet to hear any argument from National members about that. Instead they just rant on about Labour’s 9 years in Government and do not put forward any compelling arguments. National members have already forgotten about hard-working ordinary Kiwis. They are interested only in those at the top of the economic heap and I suspect that we will see more of that tomorrow in the Budget.