Wood MichaelFAIR PAY AGREEMENTS BILLThird ReadingHon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): I present a legislative statement on the Fair Pay Agreements Bill.SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.Hon MICHAEL WOOD: I move That the Fair Pay Agreements Bill be now read a third time.This one's for Helen Kelly. Over the course of this debate we've talked about the people that fair pay agreements will help—those who clean those who care those who drive those who serve—workers who for 30 years have been left out in the shadows of our deregulated labour market. And sometimes when you know the problem you need someone who will help to light the way and Helen was that person for so many of us. Helen spoke directly about the problems; Helen spoke directly and issued challenges to those of us who could make a difference. She said to Rebecca Macfie who wrote her biography We don't need low wages in this country. There's no excuse for it. People should be able to go to work work their hours and have a decent standard of living at the end of the week." And as Rebecca Macfie said reflecting on that "It was a matter-of-fact comment that belied a monumental ambition to shake up the movement she now lead so that it worked for all workers and to build the case for a law change that would stop workers' wages being eroded in a competitive race to the bottom."Helen Kelly's challenge was to all of us: it was to our economy it was to decision makers in this House and it was indeed to the union movement—to stop looking inwards and just looking after short-term interests and to look outwards to the needs of the hundreds of thousands of workers who needed a change. Sometimes it takes the clarity of a crisis to really focus us in on what needs to change. Who was it across our society that we relied on when things were as bad as they could have been under COVID? Who was it who kept our workplaces clean and healthy and hygienic but our cleaners? Who was it that kept our towns and cities moving faced aggression faced danger faced infection but our bus drivers? Who was it who kept our households stocked with the essential goods that kept us all going but those people on the chain in our supermarkets and retail stores? And everyone at that time said thank you. Everyone at that time said "These people are heroes and we rely on them." Well the words and the thanks were great but actually it's time for action. It's time to recognise the work of those people in keeping our society going at all times and in the very most difficult and worst of times.As this debate has deployed in this House over the last six months I have not heard one acknowledgment from that side of the House about the reality of life in low-wage New Zealand—not one acknowledgment. In fact from that party's spokesperson the Hon Paul Goldsmith only this week a denial that people in those roles need better wages. He said this—and I quote—"I accept that the best way to improve worker income is to ultimately improve productivity so that it is the only way to have sustainable increase in wages." Well for those people who actually have watched this area for 30 years here is what I say: we did exactly what they said we should do because the National Party stood in this House 30 years ago when they launched the most radical deregulation of the labour market when they abolished minimum standards and sector-based bargaining and they said it would lead to more productivity. They said it would lead to better terms and conditions for workers. And do you know what happened? The productivity went up and the wages did not keep pace. The promises that they made in that funk of deregulation which they still live in a fever dream of were proven to be false here in New Zealand and all around the world.This is an issue that is about priorities and it is about "We stand where we stand" and it is about the most basic and longstanding of Kiwi values: the value of a fair go. That is where we stand and that is what fair pay agreements are about: about the basic ability to have a fair day's wage for a fair day's work; about not having a race to the bottom in terms and conditions that trap not just low-wage workers but many of our employers who tell us they want to do the right thing they want to pay more they want to have security for their workers but a race to the bottom system means that those employers are undermined and unable to do what is the right thing. Fair pay agreements are also about the bigger picture. They are about stopping the race to the bottom. They are about being able to work together—across employees employers unions—to actually look at those fundamental issues that we keep talking about but are not making progress on: our chronically low rates of productivity compared to nearly every other country we compare ourselves with. And here is the irony and the reality that that side of the House never ever recognises: that the countries with which we compare ourselves who have done better on productivity than New Zealand—countries like Australia—have sector-based minimum standards that since 1991 when that side of the House—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! Order! I'm sorry to have to interrupt the member. He has every right to speak in this House and to be heard and that is why I'm appealing to our friends and visitors in the gallery to please hold their applause until the end of this whole debate. There are 12 speeches in this debate and each and every member of this House will be heard in silence by our visitors in the gallery. Then I understand you have permission to applaud as wildly as you care and also grant us and favour us with a waiata. So with apologies to the House the Hon Michael Wood.Hon MICHAEL WOOD: For the 30 years that we have not had sector-based bargaining in our economy and Australia has their average rate of productivity growth each and every year has been 40 percent higher than New Zealand's over that period. It's about lifting our sights a little bit higher to recognise that a society is not healthy when the gap between those with the least and those with the most continues to grow. It used to be a conservative value in this country that there was a basic level of security and stability for working people and that side of the House has fundamentally forgotten what that means for a decent and a stable society.It is about lifting our sights a little bit to value work and we cannot say in this House that we value work if we do not properly value the contribution that people make through fair pay through decent conditions and through a little bit of stability in their lives. And it is about once again having proper social dialogue between those who bring their capital and their ideas and the innovation and those who bring their labour to build our economy because both sides contribute to our economy and our society and both sides should have a seat at the table as we consider how the fruits of our production are shared out across the country. Fundamentally it is about once again forming a social contract in this country where working people have a voice where working people receive fair dues for the contribution that they make.I want to work through a number of thankyous as this bill comes to its conclusion. Firstly to the Rt Hon Jim Bolger and the Fair Pay Agreements Working Group who four years ago made the recommendations—considered recommendations—that we have based this legislation on. I want to thank the Hon Iain Lees-Galloway the Minister who commenced work on this legislation and this policy. To the outstanding officials within the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment including Beth Goodwin Tracy Mears and their teams who have written thousands of pages of advice who have sat through mammoth select committee hearings and who have ensured that we have a piece of legislation that I believe will be enduring. To Marja Lubeck and all members of the Education and Workforce Committee who did their job diligently and reported back a bill to this House that was better than the one that we put in at the beginning. And I say thank you to every union and every working person who has kept the faith and has helped to build support for this major change that we will be making for our society today.This was a manifesto commitment of the Labour Party when we came into office in 2020 and we are proud that we have kept it and that we are delivering this change. It speaks to our values and who we are. It speaks to the fact that we value work and working people. And in 2022 we still hold to those same values that have been core to our party over the last 106 years as we have represented working people in this House. And this is a piece of legislation that speaks to Helen Kelly's values: the values of dignity for working people; about working people not feeling that they have to feel grateful and doff their caps just for having a job; about them having the fundamental right and ability to be at the table and engage in good-faith negotiations about how they should be treated. And it's also about one of the most important values and contributions that Helen Kelly made. It was the value that we are better off when we are together when we bring everyone to the table including working people. The work is never over but today through this legislative change we are one step closer to making work fair. I commend this bill to the House.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Before I take the call members of the gallery you have had two warnings from the Chair. I'm not going to give you another warning. You may not intervene from up in the gallery. I hope I make myself very clear. Again I say to you you are very welcome here but you are not part of our debate."