Little AndrewANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition): Well that was a speech of which I think the totality was easily encapsulated by that member David Seymour's admission that when he was self-employed he was incapable of negotiating a decent rate for himself. The member who has just spoken gave an account that is the basis of the real road to serfdom which is—and he asked the question—Well if people can't be employed being paid at this exploitative rate who else is going to do it?". That is the question that exploiters ask. They just want somebody to whom they can pay as cheap a rate as possible.On this side of the House we stand for the dignity of labour the dignity of work and the decency of work. The way the world is going at the moment it is not about jobs; it is about work and it is about people being treated fairly for the work they do. That is regardless of employment status. Whether you are an employee whether you are a contractor—a so-called independent contractor or otherwise—it is about ensuring that the work you do is fairly rewarded. The problem that this bill is trying to remedy—and is pretty clear and explicit about if one takes a moment to read the bill with its schedule 2 and its specified list of services—is that it is clear that there is a range of jobs about which it can be said that there is a growing number of New Zealanders engaged in them for which they are not being paid even the minimum wage as prescribed in current minimum wage regulations. That is the issue we have to come to grips with.Let me tell the House this story. I had a businessman who chanced upon me actually in the Christchurch airport recently. It was not in the Koru lounge where I would otherwise have been mixing with "ordinary" New Zealanders but in the public area of the airport. He came up to me and I thought I was blocking his path actually. I said: "Oh excuse me. Sorry Sir I'm blocking your way." He said: "No I actually wanted to come and speak to you." He described himself as a businessman. He said he owns a business that operates in both Auckland and Christchurch and also has an operation in Australia. He described himself curiously as one of the top - 2 percent supporters of the National Party. I was not quite sure how he quantified that but he said: "I've long been a supporter of the current Government but I have increasing disquiet on two issues."The first issue he raised was the rate of wages that New Zealanders are being paid. He proudly told me—and it was very admirable from what he told me—that the minimum rate of pay in his business which is a manufacturing and distribution business is $21 an hour. He said that if somebody comes in off the street into a semi-skilled role that is what they will get paid. He provides training. He has got a skilled level of labour and technical and professional levels in his business as well. But he said that he finds it unbelievable that people are being paid at $15.25 an hour and sometimes just above for responsible work. We talked about it—you know the fact that for example in aged care rates of pay for a lot of those workers are at $15.25 or just above. He said that that is not right. He said that we have a major problem in this country: too many people are being paid too little for the work that they do.We know that one of the developments over the last few years is that increasingly workers are being shifted off conventional employment arrangements and put on to these contractor arrangements sometimes with not a great deal of real choice. It may be of interest to the previous speaker David Seymour to know actually the reality of employment relationships. Where you have the owner of a business or a manager representing the owner of the business dealing with somebody who provides their skills and time and talent to that business the relationship is not an equal one. Most people you know they want to work. They want to do their best in their work. But if they are told "Your position is being disestablished but we have this role over here under a contract that we will call an independent contract."—actually a lot of people feel compelled by circumstance to accept that as an arrangement. So they become a contractor. For many of them they are doing the work that they were doing previously as well—the same workplace often using the same tools working with the same colleagues—but then they find that they are assuming a level of cost and a level of risk in that employment relationship.That is what this bill is seeking to address because that is wrong. If we value work and most importantly if we value the people doing the work we will make sure that comparable work done under whatever employment status is paid at a comparable level—paid at a fair and decent level. There is no reason there is no justification for why somebody who shifts from an employment status to a contractor status doing comparable work should be paid differentially simply because they are a contractor—or worse be paid effectively or in real terms less than the minimum rate because of that change in status. That is what this bill is seeking to address.It is interesting—and the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee's report acknowledges this—that other countries have addressed this problem. This is an issue in many parts of the world but other countries have found the means to deal with it including our nearest neighbour Australia. I remember that when I was involved in the union movement the New South Wales Government conducted an inquiry into just this issue and it was horrified by what it discovered. It was able to regulate at a state basis and now there is federal regulation as well which ensures that if you are doing work of a specified nature on a contract basis and it is quite clear that it is not dependent on a client walking in the door—as might happen with a taxi driver—you ought to be paid at least at the regulated minimum wage level for the work that you are doing.The world of work is changing. That is why in the Labour Party we established our Future of Work Commission. We take that issue seriously. You would expect us to as the party whose name is the Labour Party. It is disappointing that members opposite—or at least their Government—do not appear to take the issue as seriously. But the world of work is changing and more and more people will be working in different ways including working under contractor-type arrangements or even as Mr Seymour talked about self-employment arrangements—but hopefully they will be better at negotiating better pay rates for themselves. We have to have a regulatory framework that acknowledges that but also accepts that there is a real risk of exploitation if we do not get that regulation right.This bill is about accepting that there is a real risk of exploitation of some if we do not get the regulatory framework right. This is a good bill. This is a bill that deals with a problem that is around today and is only getting bigger. It is a problem that other countries have managed to solve and it is a problem that this bill solves if the House is prepared to support it. It is disappointing to see that the majority of the select committee has recommended that it not proceed but it is within the power of this House—those members with a conscience and those members who want to be part of a country that celebrates good and decent work—to do the right thing.Support this bill in its second reading. Let us have a Committee stage debate tease out each part of the bill and if Mr Seymour and his colleagues on that side of the House have concerns about specific aspects of it let us consider their alternatives. Let us see the Supplementary Order Papers that will provide alternatives to the issues. But let us accept—as the select committee in its summary did I think at least impliedly accept—that there is a problem. There is a problem. The committee was just concerned that maybe it was too hard to fix or that there were too many fixes required to be made. Well this bill is very explicit and it is very specific. It shows that it is capable of fixing the problem and that would benefit at least some people who are otherwise going to suffer as a result.Mr Seymour talked about the productivity problem that we have in this country and that is a big problem. It is a problem of investment it is a problem of our technology but it is not a problem that gets fixed by paying those doing the work less and less and less. That is a way of fixing the productivity problem: you just pay people less and less. That is the exploitative way. That is the road to serfdom. This bill is about a road to prosperity for the people affected—for contract workers but actually in the end for all of New Zealand. That is why we are supporting this bill."