Craig LizDr LIZ CRAIG (Labour): Talofa lava Madam Assistant Speaker. It's a pleasure to speak on this bill on the day that the Government has responded to the inquiry into mental health and addiction because what this bill does is it extends the Care and Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlement Act to workers working in mental health and addiction support. So basically what it does is it sets in legislation an agreement that was signed back in July 2018 which saw significant pay rises for many workers working in that field. So today what I'd like to do is just briefly touch on the origins of the original Care and Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlement Act before talking about what this Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlements Amendment Bill does.In 2018 Kristine Bartlett became the New Zealander of the Year. Chief Judge Cameron Bennett when he was commenting at the time was just talking about what a deserving recipient she was and his quote was At enormous personal sacrifice [she] spearheaded the equal pay movement for caregivers in the aged-care sector. In doing so she has changed the lives of thousands of New Zealand's lowest paid workers". For those that are not familiar Kristine worked as a carer in aged care for over 24 years and despite her skills her experience in 2011 she was only earning $14.46 an hour which was just above the minimum wage.So in 2012 Kristine alongside E tū union lodged a claim with the Employment Relations Authority alleging that her employer was in breach of the Equal Pay Act. What the argument was was that caring support workers were being systematically underpaid because the work was predominantly performed by women. Five years later it took three court cases and two appeals but in April 2017 the Government finally announced a $2 billion pay equity settlement and that covered about 55000 care and support workers and that was in aged and disability residential care and also home and community support services. So it took a really really long time but they got there.But the resultant Act only covered those workers covered by the Ministry of Health district health boards (DHBs) and ACC and it actually specifically excluded mental health and addiction support workers. But what it did do is it established this whole matrix of pay rates that were linked to qualifications and it was going to be phased in over five years. What that did though is it made significant changes to the lives of many of those workers and they undertook a review. The report came out called the Value of Care. What they talked about in that report was that many care and support workers had seen quite big increases in their pay and it had such a profound impact on their quality of life. So just reading a quote from that report it says that "many we spoke to could now afford things that had caused great concern to them previously like going to the doctor the dentist or new glasses". Some were able to save up and visit relatives travel—they hadn't seen them for many years. Some of the workers who'd worked very very long hours were able to reduce those hours and then spend time with their own family or in community activities. So it was having a huge positive impact on their lives.But as I was saying that settlement only applied to those funded by the Ministry of Health DHBs and ACC and there was a whole range of other workers who were doing equivalent work and weren't eligible for the same settlement. So what this amendment bill does is it puts in law some of those settlements that were subsequently made to extend that. So what we're doing here is extending in legislation the settlement to mental health and addiction support workers and vocational disability support workers. So basically what this does is it allows them to have those same pay conditions also the same structures in terms of training and also some of those same provisions including enforcement provisions where you end up in situations where there may be disputes. So this bill is a significant bill in that what it is going to be doing is helping address some of those historic inequities and basically looking at a more consistent approach to pay equity across the support service sector. So I commend this bill to the House."