White HelenHELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert): Mr Speaker thank you. I'm a little bit disturbed at the lack of understanding that I am seeing on the other side of the House about what this bill is about but I'm also quite concerned at the confidence that people rely on anecdotes that are actually just inaccurate and we have a problem in this country because we simply do not gather the data that is really pertinent to understanding what the problems are in issues like employment. I worked as an employment lawyer for 25 years and in that time I saw a lot of problems but there were a lot of problems I never saw which existed and which never got anywhere near an official at the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment who might have been advising on this because they weren't a problem at law. They were a blind spot and that's because we don't actually keep any record of individual agreements. So when the members on the other side are talking about these things they talk through a hole in their head and when the officials are talking about these things they do the same because they simply do not have the information before them about what the problems are in this country. We like to talk about productivity and we like to make up stories about these things but we will never get to the heart of the problem until we have really good data. Now the reason that I support this bill is because we have a real problem with saving in this country. What this bill was was originally a part of the law around KiwiSaver and it made sure that people didn't discriminate against somebody and make terms and conditions better if people weren't in the scheme. So it was there and it got taken out and Tracey McLellan has looked at the situation and she's putting it back in. Now I don't know if she has experienced this problem but I suspect that she's seen it happen and the reason that we will have seen it happen is because we've seen one or three or a dozen situations but what we won't know is the quantum of the situation. So when I hear the Government members talk about how there's no problem how could they possibly know? How could they possibly know? When I hear the lack of understanding of the pressure that is in the beginning of an employment relationship I worry too because it may be that those members have been privileged enough that they have never been in a situation where they have wanted a job and signed on the dotted line. But I have seen that thousands of times where people have signed on the dotted line because they need the work and those are our hard-working New Zealanders. Those are the people we need to help and do you know what? Something like this and leaving this gap just makes it that little bit harder. It makes it harder for people who haven't got enough savings and guess who ends up paying for that? First of all it's the individual. It's demoralising. I heard the gentleman on the other side talk about how we work hard and we stay longer and it all comes right—well it doesn't. Not if you're actually not watching and being careful about terms and conditions—it doesn't. People actually fall into the hole and who has to pick them up at 65 or 70 when they stop working in their job as a cleaner? The taxpayer does. So the businesses will not pick up these people because tonight the Government members will vote against this bill but actually the taxpayer will end up paying for these people because they must have to top that up and that's in the society that I hope we have where we have a safety net. If you get rid of the safety net—as some of the parties in this House want to do—then we won't have that either. People will fall through the cracks and they will end up sleeping in their cars. We already have a whole lot of old people who cannot afford to buy a house. Most people in this House actually do own a house. We're in a privileged position. We have made it that little bit harder for hard-working New Zealanders tonight if we vote against this bill and what Dr McLellan was doing was trying to plug a small gap in the system. She was trying to address a discrimination that is out there and—yes—we don't know how many people. But we don't know it because of our own failure—our own failure to gather the information that we sorely need if we are going to make evidential decisions in this House—and if I hear one more banal anecdote about how you can just work hard in this country and it will be just fine I would ask please question those anecdotes. We have the privilege of being in a House where we get to make decisions for other people whose experiences we do not share and at least we should be keeping our eyes and ears open. At least we should be moving beyond our own prejudice and the first thing we need to do is actually consider the reality of people in those situations. Instead of imagining that you're the employer in that situation try imagining that you are the employee. Not the winners and the losers—and you happen to be the winners in this situation—but try thinking about what happens because it's going to happen around you. The people in this House will have their children affected and they will also have their parents affected. We will end up with parents who have got no savings and we've got to help them through and we will end up with our cousins and our kids in a situation where we have not put in place the right mechanisms for them to be able to save. Now you've heard the very good history of this bill from the Hon Dr Deborah Russell. The House heard tonight about the actual realities of putting that legislation in place which is what Dr Cullen did. That is something that this country has never regretted. That is something that now we all in this House pretty much agree I think was the right thing to do. But it cannot be eroded and it needs to be improved because we still aren't saving enough and actually we should take account when we look at little bills like this. We should be thinking about things like the Retirement Commissioner and the Retirement Commissioner says that we're a long way behind. I mean I wonder how many people in this country understand that when it comes to superannuation really in their KiwiSaver they need a million dollars. How many people understand that in this country and how much harder have we made it tonight for people who need that kind of cushioning when we take away just that little thing which says that actually you shouldn't be treated worse because you've joined this scheme—you shouldn't get less. There shouldn't be workarounds but that's what we'll be doing tonight when we vote down this bill. We're making it that little bit harder. If this House thinks that it is about looking after working people—and I think that we do all probably share that—then we really need to get a grip on what our reality is and what the reality of people is. One thing is a power dynamic. Another thing is that it will come back and haunt us as taxpayers it will come back and haunt us as relatives and it may even come back and haunt us because we're the unlucky ones who haven't got the savings when it comes to retirement because things go down. So that's my plea to this House. I urge members in this House to consider the reality of bills like this and to not talk about things as solutions looking for problems or whatever it is—some banal comment—to cover up the fact that they don't read the bill and they don't know what it's about. That is not good enough. We have got a standard we have to reach here which is that we need to understand the evidence and if we don't understand the evidence we need to understand where the gaps in our understanding come from. So one of the things that I think is a lesson out of bills like this and out of the advice given is that we need much better data than we've got. We need to start to gather individual agreements so that we can see what people are putting in contracts. We need to start to audit things like this and see where the problems are and actually we will just not do that by way of anecdotes which always play out to our own preconceptions and prejudices. So that's what I would urge this House to do tonight—to really consider it. I'm sorry but it seems that Dr McLellan's bill will not pass. I congratulate her on putting it in and thinking about people who are on the edge there who need to be helped and need to be supported when they're discriminated against in their employment because they've joined a KiwiSaver system.