Fenton Darien: General Debate 
Fenton Darien: General Debate 
[Volume:673;Page:19610] 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 What a relief to hear at least one member on the other side of the House talk about his own party for a change instead of spending the entire 5 minutes talking about the Labour Party. I am very very interested actually; it makes me wonder why those members are so concerned about the Labour Party. Why do they want to talk about us all the time? I know that Mr Woodhouse will not like me saying this but I think it demonstrates that those members have nothing good to say about themselves and no plan for the future. Labour will give everybody a fair go and make everybody pay their fair share. I am very proud to say that Labour has a solid promise to raise the minimum wage to $15 by the end of its first year in Government. That is a solid promise. So do not say that we do not have policies. We will do better by low and middle income people who are struggling to make ends meet.  
Let me talk about what an increase in the minimum wage to $15 an hour will mean. It will mean that over 229000 workers will get a lift in their pay if they work full-time of almost $80 a week. Labour’s tax-free threshold adds a further $10 a week. The people who will benefit from this are not just young workers; they are women Maori Pasifika and those up in Northland in Te Tai Tokerau who are struggling to make ends meet. There would be an economy-wide increase in wages of $518 million. That is an economic plan.  
We all know that National’s changes have not helped anybody. They have not helped unemployment they have not helped wages and they have not helped those on the lowest wages as the Minister of Labour admitted today and yesterday. But of course that Minister of Labour did not want the minimum wage to go up from $12 an hour last year. She actually rejected the proposition that it should go up at all but was rolled. Then she wanted to keep it at $12 an hour. This year the advice was that the minimum wage could go up to $13.50 with a negligible impact on jobs. She rejected that as well; she ignored that advice. John Key’s Government is making life tougher for working people when things were already hard. National did it the last time it was in Government and New Zealand went backwards in wages productivity skills development and job creation. Now it is at it again.  
But New Zealanders are not stupid. They are moving across the Tasman in droves—in greater numbers than ever before—because they have worked out that this Government has no answers. People are not stupid. They can see that Australia has a minimum wage of NZ$20 an hour and that differential is a problem for this Government and this country. Those workers getting on the planes are not just the highly skilled; they are also the unskilled because they can do better across the Ditch. Those workers cannot make a living in this country because this Government is miserable with the minimum wage and has no plan to provide them with decent jobs.  
Contrary to popular opinion more than half of all workers covered by the minimum wage are older than 24. So it is not just about young workers trying to get into work. It affects good people. It affects our school support staff. It affects our caregivers—those who look after older people—our home-care workers and our hospital and school service staff among thousands and thousands. Let us talk about what a minimum wage earner actually takes home each week. If they work full-time—and many of them do not—they earn $447 a week after tax. That is before reductions for KiwiSaver student loans if they have one or ACC. John Key’s cleaner in this Parliament is paid $13.10 an hour. I bet that no one particularly the Minister of Labour asked her advice about whether increasing the minimum wage beyond $13 was a good idea. I do not understand how anyone expects people to live on $447 a week. That is what a full-time worker gets on the minimum wage. I do happen to know that Kate Wilkinson has not been anywhere near her cleaners or the Prime Minister’s cleaners because if she bothered to talk to them she would know that her decisions are making life even tougher.