Ross Jami-Lee: Minimum Wage (Starting-out Wage) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Ross Jami-Lee: Minimum Wage (Starting-out Wage) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 18 October 2012. Volume:684;Page:6013. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany) 
: 
 Andrew Little wanted to talk about failure. Well I want to tell the House about failure. Failure is seeing 9000 young people end up on the unemployment heap when that party opposite decided it wanted to scrap youth wages. We saw 9000 young people not being able to enter the job market because of the changes that that party over there made to make it difficult—make it harder—for young people to gain employment. 
This bill the Minimum Wage (Starting-out Wage) Amendment Bill is all about giving young people more opportunities. It is all about giving young people more opportunities to get a foot in the job market. It is all about giving young people the ability to get some experience to become more competitive in the job market and to get some jobs because we know that leaving young people languishing on the unemployment heap is absolutely unacceptable. 
We know that if young people are out of school out of work or out of training for the majority of their teenage years then there is a 90 percent chance that they are going to end up as long-term welfare beneficiaries and being a long-term welfare beneficiary has a whole lot of other problems that are more difficult for them to overcome in life. 
We know that getting them into training or getting them into jobs or keeping them at school is an absolute priority. So this bill is all about helping them in the job market. This bill is all about giving them an opportunity to present themselves in front of employers with a competitive edge and giving them something so employers will consider taking them on because we know that if a 16-year-old and a 26-year-old front up before an employer obviously the employer is going to choose the candidate with the greater experience. But if we give the employer an incentive through a starting out wage to take a chance on the younger employee to look at that younger employee and say “Here is an option for employment.” and to give them a chance give them a “go” and give them the experience then that young person gains that experience and gains the opportunity to get a foot in the job market. 
We know that the Opposition actually has a very poor track record on jobs. [ 
Interruption 
] Andrew Little you should listen to this because your party has a very poor track record. Your party saw 9000 young people end up on the unemployment heap. Your party opposed 13000 jobs being created through the 90-day trial and we know that the minimum wage changes that the Labour Party wants would see 6000 people end up on the unemployment heap too. 
We are actually about creating more jobs. We are actually about giving New Zealanders more opportunities—more opportunities. We have created over 50000 jobs in the last 2 years and we have got another 150000 jobs to be created in the next 4 years. The only thing we hear from the Opposition is more policies to make it more difficult for employers and employees to meet together and create employment. 
This bill deserves the recognition of the House. This bill deserves to be passed through the House because there are young people out there—young people out there—who are crying out for jobs and young people out there who are desperate to get a foot in the job market. They know times are tough. They know that it is difficult out there for employers. They know that the 90-day trial has helped them a lot but they need a little bit of something else and they know that this bill will help them further. This will help young people get off the unemployment heap. Young people with a steady work history like all employees are seen as less risky for employers to take on but if they do not have that work history it is more difficult for them. This bill will enable them to get more of a work history and more ability to get through the door. 
The only options the only alternatives we are hearing from the other side Labour’s solutions to the so-called crisis out there are more inflation and—the other solution—printing money. They want to join up with the Green Party to print more money because apparently they think that is going to create more jobs as well. They think taxing people taxing capital will help employers create more jobs. They are absolutely crazy if they think taxing capital is going to do that. Their other big solution is to go back to the 1970s with industrial relations awards. That was their policy at the last election—another way another backwards step to make it more difficult for employers to create jobs; to make it more difficult for the economy to create jobs. 
We are creating jobs in the economy. This will help young people. They can yell they can scream they can moan about it they can say whatever they like but the reality is that the statistics show that 9000 young people left the employment market. This will give them more of an opportunity to enter back in get a foot on the ladder get more experience and become long-term employees. This is a good piece of legislation. I look forward to it being passed through its first reading and hearing it through the select committee. Thank you.