Moroney Sue: Minimum Wage (New Entrants) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Moroney Sue: Minimum Wage (New Entrants) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:641;Page:11182] 
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
 At this point of the debate in the Committee stage we are really getting to the crux of the Minimum Wage (New Entrants) Amendment Bill. I think that the member who has just resumed his seat should perhaps cross the floor because in fact he argued against his own party’s position. His colleagues were maintaining that increasing the minimum rate for 16 and 17-year-olds would affect employment figures. That member did a good job of convincing—I hope—his colleagues and certainly the rest of the Committee that the evidence is there: increasing the minimum rate does not affect the employment rate or the unemployment rate. That is not what this bill is about. 
This bill is not about affecting employment or unemployment rates; this bill is about getting a level playing field for 16 and 17-year-olds. When 16 and 17-year-olds are contributing in a workplace to the same level as any other person irrespective of what their age may be they will not be discriminated against by virtue of the Minimum Wage Act. That is what this bill is about. 
I think that the member who just resumed his seat completely missed that point. He thought he was coming down here to debate who had done better in terms of unemployment rates—National or Labour. I do not think we need to debate that. I think everyone in the country is absolutely aware that under Labour—under its policy settings under its support for business under its support for workers and under all the policies that it has brought in—there is no doubt that unemployment has fallen dramatically and drastically. 
This bill is really putting the cat among the pigeons and not just for the National Party. The National Party is really exposing its hand here. Its members have campaigned in the past on the issue of being worried about low pay in this country and worried about New Zealanders who take their skills and fortunes over to places like Australia. They talk about that regularly and routinely. But when they get an opportunity to do something in this House to improve low pay in this country what do they do? We can check their voting record. Every single time they get an opportunity to improve low pay in a structural way they vote against it. That is what the record of National is. So next time those members roll that little bumper sticker slogan out at election time check the voting record. 
I will move on and respond to the Maori Party position. Hone Harawira earlier in this debate talked about the very experienced union people on this side of the Chamber and made some observations. Thank goodness that the Maori Party is not a union responsible for taking wage claims forward. At this point in the debate the Maori Party members are saying—and my colleague Darien Fenton used this example before as well—that if a union goes to an employer for a claim for a 10 percent wage increase and the employer says: “Well good argument folks but we can’t quite do that. We’ll give you 8 percent instead.” the Maori Party if it were the union would say: “No thanks very much. We’ll take nothing; we’ll take zero.” That is the position that the Maori Party is taking at present. 
I think that the Maori Party is probably standing on principle but it is not thinking about the practicalities of this. The impact of voting against this Supplementary Order Paper is the maintenance of the status quo. The status quo means that 17 and 18-year-olds will not get this increase in the minimum wage until their 18th birthday. This Supplementary Order Paper makes significantly more progress than that. 
I know that Paula Bennett sneers at people who work as stable hands and people who live in small towns but I want to use the example of many young people in an industry that I am familiar with who work as stable hands in the horse racing industry. Supplementary Order Paper 137 states that after 200 hours of employment 16 and 17-year-olds will receive the adult rate. That will take about 4 weeks of working in a horse racing stable for a 16-year-old—they generally work about 50 hours a week—to be on the adult rate. That is the sort of improvement that has been proposed here. The Maori Party would have that 16-year-old wait 2 years and not get the adult minimum rate until 18. I really encourage that party to think about the practicalities of the position it is putting forward on that basis. This is good progress it is world leading.