Bennett David: Minimum Wage (Abolition of Age Discrimination)Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Bennett David: Minimum Wage (Abolition of Age Discrimination)Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
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DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) 
: 
 It is my pleasure to speak on the Minimum Wage (Abolition of Age Discrimination) Amendment Bill today. I thank members of our Transport and Industrial Relations Committee for the work we have gone through in looking at this bill and I thank the proponents of the bill for their work. We were certainly very pleased to see this issue come before the select committee. 
All committee members took a great deal of enjoyment in hearing from the submitters. Some really successful people in business made submissions but also some young people made submissions and I will draw attention to the submission made by representatives of Young Labour. Actually it was probably the best submission that was made. Those guys really did a lot of work on their submission and it was a real credit to them. Even though it was slightly misguided in where they wanted to go it was a very good submission and they presented it very well. 
Today we have just listened to some arguments and one argument made about discrimination I think we need to address at a very early stage in this House. This bill is not about discrimination. Drawing comparisons with Lord Wilberforce are unfair to Lord Wilberforce as this is not a case where we have an upper limit on what someone can be paid. If we had a limit specifying that we can pay 16 and 17-year-olds only $5 an hour then that would be discrimination. We have a lower limit; we do not have an upper limit. So there is no discrimination in the sense that the Maori Party has promoted today. I think that is something we need to look at as it is fundamental to the employment situation out there. It is a matter of choice. Employers can choose to pay more than the minimum wage and in a lot of cases they do. We had submissions saying that 58 percent of some employers pay above the minimum wage. I think it is fundamental to look at the opportunity for an employer to recognise a good employee. If someone is good the employer will reward that person. The employer will pay that person. 
We come into this House and we talk about equality and we think of one big level playing field—well members should have a look around at themselves. This is not a place of equality; this is a place that is all about hierarchy. We have members in the front row representing their time in this place. They get the jobs in the front row. Cabinet Ministers get paid more than backbenchers in Labour. It is all about hierarchy. How are we going to change that hierarchy? Are we to say that we cannot have that at the start of someone’s working career—it is all right to have a hierarchy in the later stages of one’s career but it is not all right to have a hierarchy in the early stages? That just does not make sense. The reality is that whatever people do in life they start in one position and work up. 
Will this mean that young people getting their drivers’ licences will go straight on to full drivers’ licences? No it does not. We make sure that people have to go through a whole system and if anything there is talk about extending the system so that people have more time under restricted or learner drivers’ licences. How can we say that in employment we now have to charge or be paid a certain amount that is at the highest level when this would not happen in other areas of life? Will this mean giving 16 and 17-year-olds the vote? No; there are proposals to do it but they will not get very far because we have some limits in our society. 
We recognise some degree of growth. We recognise especially in employment degrees of success and how people progress through their careers—and their salaries are generally commensurate with that. That is the key thing; that is the basis of our society. We do that through our community and through our leadership in this place and we do that through the wages we pay our people. We do that in all aspects of our society. To come in here and talk about discrimination is not true. This is not about an element of discrimination. This is a case where people are living the reality of how our lives are based—people have to go through structures to get to the success that they want to get to. 
The second thing I think we need to look at before we look at some of the arguments for and against the position is the treatment of the Green Party. Those members came to the select committee with high ambitions. They were philosophically in the right place. They said that they wanted to have all of the stuff gone but then Labour came back at the last minute and said no we are going to have this 200-hour element. Labour stymied the Green Party as it does time and time again. 
If there is one lesson the Green Party needs to learn from this it is that it cannot trust those Labour members. The Green Party had a good idea. Labour should have been backing the Greens all the way—it is full of unionists—and it did not. Then Labour came back and changed the bill. Labour brought in a 200-hour change. Labour changed its mind. It was backing the Green Party all the way saying that this is a good idea this is great; and then what does it do? It puts in this 200-hour element. One could see the Green Party members’ faces drop. It was the last thing they expected. Their dreams had gone out of the window. They do not want to support this bill now; that is how bad it is. They want to turn round and say no. 
The Maori Party is in exactly the same position. Its members want to say no because they do not like the 200-hours change. Labour cannot have it both ways. If Labour wanted it it should have done it the whole way but it did not do that. Labour could not be there for the Green Party in terms of the pure philosophy. So that is something that has been missed out. 
I will look at some of the other things in the bill. Employers generally pay what they want for staff. Employers make that conscious choice. However the young people who came in front of the committee said that that was not the case. They have situations where as a 16 or 17-year-old they can be training somebody who is new who may be a 20-year-old and not getting paid the same amount. This is what the young people said. If they were 17 and had been working say at McDonald’s for a year potentially a 20-year-old could come in and that 17-year-old would be paid less but would be training the 20-year-old. That is a very good argument. They were saying that they were not getting paid for the work they had done; that was the argument put forward. The reality is that employers make the choice to retain such people and if they want to retain them they will pay them what they are worth. 
We have a tight labour market out there. Employers need good staff. The hardest thing to find is good staff. As members of Parliament we go around businesses and communities and every time we go into an employment situation the first thing we are told is that the employer wants good staff. Employers will pay to keep the people they want. That is the fundamental basis of what is happening in our employment situation at the moment. If employers will pay that rate they will recognise if someone is 17 and training a 20-year-old. They will take that into account in making the wage decision for that 16 or 17-year-old. So the market is achieving that already. 
The other argument out there and the one that Bob Clarkson put forward in a very good manner was that people need a start; they need a chance they need a break they need to get in. How many people actually go and walk into their first job? I would say very few. Most people who get their first job have to do something special. They have to get their foot in the door. How many people in this Chamber have gone and worked for free to get some experience? I bet that people have. How many people here have gone out and given of themselves before they got a job? 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Only to the Labour Party. 
DAVID BENNETT 
: Exactly; they have given to the Labour Party. They give before they get. And when they give they get what they want; they get a job. They had to give for years working for the Labour Party with no payment and now they are in here; they got a job. So how can they say anything other than that? One has to give to get. What is the difference between paying a lower rate while people are giving and learning skills—[ 
Interruption 
] Now people like David Cunliffe get to sit over there and talk about these things because only the rich can think like he does. That is the reality of this world. 
There will be a lot of other effects from this legislation. The minimum wage will go to $12 before we know it. That will hurt young people. The number of young people going into unemployment is so high. In fact 12 percent of young people are unemployed compared with the 3 to 4 percent national average. That is a big difference. If wage rates are increased to $12 that difference will be accentuated and young people will be put at a disadvantage. Time and time again submitters came in and made that point. 
There is the argument that this will be a disincentive for people to go into education when that is what we should be promoting as a country. All in all we say there are some problems with this legislation. We do not believe it is a matter of discrimination and we have some pity for the Green Party which went out there but did not achieve its full goals.