Bennett David: Minimum Wage (New Entrants) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Bennett David: Minimum Wage (New Entrants) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
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DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) 
: 
 If we wanted to hear from a dinosaur we have just heard from one. If we wanted to hear a blast from the past that is what we have heard from Labour and the Greens in respect of the Minimum Wage (New Entrants) Amendment Bill because this is communism. This is saying that everybody is equal and everybody is the same. Those parties if they had half a chance would have everybody in this room sitting at the same level. They say there is no difference between someone who has just started working and someone who has been working for 30 years. They say there is no difference between the person in the front row and the person in the back row and there is no difference between someone who is leading a party and someone who is sitting at the back. Well there is a difference. There are differences when it comes to everything we do in our society. We have a hierarchical society. It is based on success and it is based on positioning and one has to get a start. This bill is hurting those people who need to get a start. If we want to go back to the past and talk about communism dinosaurs and blasts from the past then we should look at Labour and the Green Party because that is what is happening in this legislation. 
It is not helping the people who need assistance. The young people who will make this country strong are not being helped by this legislation. All we are doing through this legislation is making sure those people will not get that first chance. They will never get a start. They will not get the chance to go out there and prove themselves to develop those skills and to make a go of themselves. 
We have one of the highest rates of youth unemployment especially Maori youth unemployment. Will this bill help that? Forget it! If an employer has a choice between somebody who has 20 years of life experience and somebody who is just coming into the workplace whom the employer has to pay 12 bucks an hour I ask who that employer would choose. I would like to see Labour pay all its staff and all the people who have ever worked for it in any capacity on the full rate. I bet members that Labour does not do so. I bet Labour has been rich enough to take advantage of this legislation in the past. I bet Labour’s funders have been rich enough to take advantage of this legislation in the past. It is good enough for Labour to vote for it but its members will not come in here and do the opposite; they will use that legislation to pay people at a minimum rate then come in here say they are holier than thou and will pay everyone $12 an hour and then see how the employers get on. 
That is a recognition of a Government that is out of touch with the people and that is why it is polling at the current rate. The Government has no idea of what the employers want it has no idea of what the community wants and more important it has no idea of what young people want. Young people want a start; they want a future. That is why they are going to Australia. It is not the old people leaving and going to Australia; it is the young people who want a future who are doing so. 
 They are going because they can see they will be able to earn more and be taxed less and they can see there is economic growth. Economic growth is the thing these guys have stymied. Economic growth in Australia today is at 4 percent. What are we at? We are struggling to be at 1 percent. That is the difference between our countries. If the Government wants to do something for our young people then it should have policies that will get us up to an economic growth of 4 percent. If it keeps us down at 1 percent then it will not be able to pay the $12 per hour minimum wage rate. There will never be an ability to pay that $12 to young people going into the workforce if our economic growth is kept at those low levels. 
This is not an argument about justice for young people as the Green Party has tried to put out. Even if it were that party’s members got shafted in the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee by the Labour Party. They went in there with the philosophy that this is better than anything else that this is what they wanted to do to have equality across the board in New Zealand. That is true Green policy which is fine; that is what the Greens believe in. But they got slammed by the Labour Party. The Labour Party went in there and said “No”. In fact the Labour Party did not actually say no; the Labour Party did what it normally does: it took the Greens right to the altar. It took them right up there and said it would back them that it would be there and that it would be the one to go to bed with them. And what did Labour do? At the last minute it said “No”. It said it wanted 200 hours as a new entrants scheme. What did that do? It meant that those beautiful people from New Zealand First who have no ability to change their minds had to come in behind because once the Labour Party does something New Zealand First also has to do it. 
That is what has happened in this case. The Green Party went into the select committee with the emotional intent and the pure ideology of what they wanted to portray but it got shafted by the big bad red party and New Zealand First had to come in behind it and back it up. That is the reality of what has happened with this legislation. It is nothing about helping young people. It is not about the new generation of New Zealanders getting a chance. This legislation shows politics at its worst. It shows an idea that has been transformed and mutated by a Government that wishes to stay in power and wants to put its spin on something but not actually change the rules. That is what has happened in this case. 
When the members of the Green Party walk out of this Chamber they will try to have some face hold their heads high and say that they achieved this. But the reality is that the legislation we are passing is not what they really wanted. It is not what they went after in the first place. This is a Labour Party jaunt on top of what they tried to do. At some stage the Greens will have to stand up and say what they actually believe in not what those guys tell them they have to believe in to get something through this Parliament. It will be an interesting day when that actually happens. 
When we look forward we have to look at a tight labour market in the New Zealand economy. In any Western country it is tough for employers to get good staff and they will pay people what they deserve. There is nothing discriminatory in what the National Party is saying. We are not saying that this is a maximum rate; we are saying that this is a minimum rate. There is a big difference. Employers can actually pay more than the minimum rate if they want to. They can go out there and say they want a person who they think is a good employee. They will not care what age that person is and they will pay that person at the right rate. There is nothing discriminatory about that. If we said there was a maximum rate then fair enough: that is discriminatory. But we are not doing that. We are talking about a minimum rate. That is not discriminatory. That is the big difference that I think these political parties need to look at. 
It is not about saying that one party is against youth against minimum rates or against employees. It is not about that. This is a purely philosophical argument about a party that said what it believed in and a party that overrode it. The National Party has been constant in saying throughout the whole time of this debate that it believes that employers have the ability to pay more than that rate. We say that employers can pick the right people and pay them the right rate. We do not see this debate as being about young people not getting paid for what their value is; this is a debate about how we send the signals out there. Our signals through our community are ones of hierarchy. [ 
Interruption 
] No our signals are of hierarchy. We sit in a building that is based on hierarchy our questions are based on hierarchy and our votes are based on the hierarchy that comes from an election every 3 years. Then we expect everyone to live by different rules. We cannot do that. There is only one way to go—that is to achieve success through building up from having a start. That is what we are denying our young people. We are denying them that step through the door. 
How many people in this room have had to give in order to get where they are now? I bet everyone would say that they have. David Cunliffe a Minister actually said in the second reading of the bill that he had to give to the Labour Party in order to get into this building. When one is a young person starting out in a job one has to give something to get the experience in order to get that step through the door to make a start. I bet that all those people opposite gave something. They would have given to a union which is not a very good choice. But they gave something. Now they have moved up and are sitting on those benches without having any idea of what it is like to be an employer. They would have no idea what it is like for young people out there now who want to take a step who want a chance and who want a dream. This legislation denies them that chance and that dream and the shame is on Labour on the Green Party and on the New Zealand First Party for doing it in this way.