Little Andrew: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLittle Andrew: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate[Sitting date: 24 June 2014. Volume:699;Page:18823. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW LITTLE (Labour):Well I think it is a pleasure to take a call on the Appropriation (2013/14 Supplementary Estimates) Bill and Imprest Supply (First for 2014/15) Bill. I want to say this: we on this side of the House look forward to the change of Government in September this year. The people of New Zealand especially those in the regions are looking for a positive message and are looking for positive change in the days and the months and the years that follow September this year.You see this Government is in a desperate bid to sell a myth to New Zealand that average wages have gone up under this Government. National has done it in its quite extensive piece of publicity material that has gone around to households. This what it says: “Our growing economy is creating more jobs and is seeing average wages rise faster than inflation.”—a proposition that so far every National Party speaker in this debate and in just about every other debate has failed to substantiate. Those members cannot justify it and cannot explain it for one very simple reason: it is not true. It is not true. Those members cannot sustain it.Of course if it was correct that under this Government magically wages inflated themselves and people felt better off then you would have to wonder why it was that Bill English in January this year after 5 years of a National Government seeing no real change in the back pockets of working New Zealanders stood up and had to say that Kiwis should expect pay rises this year after years of belt tightening. He went on to say that a lot of households would be looking for benefits through more job security which they have not had and through pay rises that households have not had much of through the last 3 years or 4 years. “So yeah” he said “they have a right to expect some of the benefits.” That is what Bill English said. Well he did not say that today in his contribution to this debate. What he has done today in question time and in the debate is peddle an OECD report that is 3 years out of date. That is the best that National can come up with—information 3 years out of date. But it has not stopped—Jonathan Young: They only released it last week.ANDREW LITTLE: Jonathan Young raises a good point. That report came out only last week which is the reason why this Government has been desperate to peddle it and it hopes that everybody does not notice the date that it closed off on which was 3 years ago.Of course that report does not take account of a number of very important facts including the fact that last year 46 percent of New Zealanders did not get a pay rise. Funnily enough National says that the average annual pay rise has gone up. It actually claims that it is 3.2 percent—it is not—but 46 percent of New Zealanders did not get a pay rise last year. That must mean that there are some people getting whacking great pay rises and of course they are. It is around about the top 1 percent or maybe the top 1.5 percent but it is not ordinary working New Zealanders who now 6 years after this Government came in are looking around and asking where their fair share is. They may well ask where their fair share is because they ain’t going to get much from this Government if it carries on much longer. So we have this myth being peddled that average wages are increasing.It gets worse than that. The thinking members of the National Party know that they cannot possibly justify that. The virtue of being a backbencher is that you can actually depart from what the Ministers are saying because you are not saddled with Cabinet responsibility. The thinking backbenchers—and sadly I have to say that there are only a few of them but Maggie Barry and Simon O’Connor may well rate amongst them—try to look ahead and rather than look at the historical record they have done some crystal ball - gazing. We have had a bit of that in Parliament this afternoon. But anyway they have looked ahead and they say: “Oh listen. Don’t worry working New Zealanders. It’s all right because your pay is on average going to go up by $7600 in the next 4 years.” and nobody believes them. Nobody believes them because it has not happened in the last 4 years and it is not going to happen in the next 4 years. Things are going to get worse because every piece of employment law that this Government has passed has been about making it harder and tougher for hard-working New Zealanders to get a better deal.The National Government still has law changes on its books. Its majority was found guilty in court a few weeks ago so the employment law will have to go out. It was put on ice until after the election because the Government’s majority got found guilty and he left Parliament but this Government still has it on its books. It still has on its books law changes that will make it a lot lot harder for good hard-working New Zealanders to get a decent pay rise.So in their heart of hearts even though the thinking backbenchers of the National Government try to peddle that myth they know that no one—no hard-working New Zealanders; certainly not the two-thirds who earn less than the average wage—is going to be getting a $7600 pay increase over the next 4 years. That is absurd and those members know it. It is not going to happen because there is nothing in this legislation or in this Government’s plans that is going to do anything across the board to improve the lives and the value for working New Zealanders. They will continue to suffer and they have had enough. They have had enough which is why they have rapidly gone off this Government. They have rapidly gone off this Government and that is why this Government has to use figures that are 3 years out of date. That is why some members opposite have to look to figures that cannot be justified when trying to predict what is going to happen 4 years hence. That is the pity of it.So we have 46 percent of wage and salary earners who cannot get a pay rise and we had a private sector survey come out just yesterday. The MP for New Plymouth Jonathan Young said to me about the OECD report: “Well it came out only last week.” Its figures are 3 years out of date but the private sector survey of New Zealand employers is as current as last month. It came out yesterday and it is very telling. Just as the Government’s own figures tell us that 46 percent of workers could not get a pay rise in the last year this survey says that 49 percent of employers say that they do not expect to give their workers a pay increase this year. So the figures more or less line up. The figures match up. Welcome to New Zealand today. If you are a hard-working Kiwi and you are not in the top 20 percent you are going to struggle to get a pay rise. It is OK if you are in a union and it is OK if you are covered by the Remuneration Authority—which we members all are of course—but if you are a hard-working New Zealander and you are doing your bit to help your boss and raising the nation’s productivity do not bother asking for a pay rise because the employers have already told the surveyors that they are not going to give it to you and this Government does not care.This Government does not care that at a time when according to David Bennett the economy is growing by 3.8 percent after March this year—3.8 percent in the year to March this year David Bennett said. And why would David Bennett a man who has been in this House a long time not know? He knows his figures. Why would we baulk at it? But half of New Zealanders cannot get a pay rise. That is the crying shame of New Zealand today. That is the crying shame of this Government. Paul Hutchison might look mournfully at me. I know that he thinks that that is an appalling indictment on the Government that he is about to depart from but the truth is that half of working New Zealanders cannot get a decent pay rise. That is what the surveys are telling us and that is what workers are telling us.The attempt by Simon O’Connor and Maggie Barry to try to cajole people into believing that it is all jam tomorrow is not going to work. What New Zealanders need is a change. They need a Government that is serious about making sure that working New Zealanders share in the benefits of a growing economy and not what we have at the moment which is concentrating ever-greater wealth into the top 1 percent. That is what the National Party stands for.New Zealanders are looking for a Government committed to the regions not like this Government in Taranaki where for the third successive year the GDP per capita has fallen because this Government is not concerned about making investment in the regions. Oh those members all turn up there Minister after Minister and cheer on all the things that they have absolutely no responsibility for but the minute it starts turning to custard they are out of there. So when 250 highly skilled engineering jobs went out of New Plymouth in the first 4 months of this year you did not hear a bean from this Government—not from any representative of it. When more than 100 public sector jobs were sucked out of Taranaki in the last 3 years you did not hear a thing from any member opposite because they do not care about the regions. When you have got one of the most dangerous public roads and most utilised roads in the country in the form of State Highway 3 North and it is now killing people you do not hear anything from the Government opposite about more investment being needed to upgrade that road and make it safe for the travelling public.This Government has forgotten about working people it does not care about them and it does not care about the regions and there is nothing in this legislation that is going to make a blind bit of difference to that. Nothing that New Zealanders hear from this Government in the election campaign this year will mean anything for workers or for the regions in this country which is why people are desperately keen for a change.