Woodhouse Michael; Salesa JennyHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you Madam Speaker. Well that's the Andrew Little we've come to know and love in this House—just wind him up and let him go! Boy did he go! I think Mr Little was born about the same year I was about 1965 something like that—practically twins as I've said in the House before—but he was born in the wrong generation. Couldn't you see Mr Little on the waterfront in 1951 with his cloth cap and his bell and his whistle leading the troops into the battle with New Zealand Police and the Defence Force. That's back to the future to me. I think we should find a DeLorean and send him back because that's what he's suited to—not a modern workplace; not a modern economy; not a flexible fair and safe relationship; but a tub-thumping union-focused angry Minister.Hon Gerry Brownlee: And why no action? Because he couldn't find them.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: That's quite right; he probably couldn't. He said an extraordinary thing right at the end of his intervention here. He said We're doing something that the Government should have done five years ago." Well I say to the Minister we did do it five years ago and the clue is in the Act that the Government is amending; it's called the Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlements Act—pay equity settlements. He's criticising the previous Government for somehow imposing this on the workers and the unions at the same time as he passes under urgency an amendment to that Act that imposes worse than that on those workers.But I would also point out to him because he clearly hasn't read the Act that he's amending that the purpose of that Act in 2017 was to give effect to settlement agreements—settlement agreements with E tū the New Zealand Public Service Association Inc. the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions and the NZNO—the New Zealand Nurses Organisation. They agreed to those terms and they did so and that window of no pay equity claims because that eye-watering amount of money was designed to buy the time that was needed to normalise bargaining and reset and put pay equity behind them and get on with the normal negotiation process. And then the Labour Government went to sleep. And then they woke up.There was a lot of yelling back and forth in the first reading particularly when I was on my feet. But the one thing that they were quiet as mouse about was the departmental disclosure statement description that said they had a two-week negotiation process with the unions and the employers couldn't agree so they're coming down to this House to impose a settlement under urgency by legislation.I want to reflect a little bit on what Mr Seymour said. I accept the criticisms that there may be a revisionist approach to what I said when I said "We got the popcorn out." But then he went on to effectively agree with me by saying that the previous Government could have done nothing. That was the point I was trying to make. I accept the point that he said that they probably should have done nothing because the best place for the Government to be in an employment relationship is out of it is to leave bargaining to the employers and the employees and their agents and that it did I'm sure offend his principle on that basis when it was being discussed by the social policy Cabinet committee. But the previous Government did have a reputation for pragmatism and it was a pragmatic response and it was a response designed as the label says to achieve pay equity and at that time it did.The Minister can bang on all he likes about minimum wage increases. I was the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety that increased minimum wages at twice the rate of inflation—in fact public sector wages and general Labour Cost Index under the previous National Government rose at twice the rate of inflation. He can crow all he likes about increases in the minimum wage; labour costs in this country are currently going up at half the rate of inflation. So they're pouring money into firstly the public sector and then taking it out of the pockets of private business to put it into the hands of workers and workers are worse off—and certainly these workers are worse off.Now I want to acknowledge the Green Party and Teanau Tuiono who I thought gave a very good first reading speech. Now I've been critical of the Green Party in past—Hon Gerry Brownlee: What!Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: —pieces of legislation when they abstain—I know; it's a character flaw of mine Mr Brownlee—but when they sit on the fence and get splinters up their butt because they will not oppose things that they know they should. But today they've made a line-ball call and they have said "No; we can't support this process and we can't support this legislation." and I commend them for that because it is a line-ball call. The National Party has considered whether or not it should oppose it and we've come down on the side of "OK; let's hold our noses and support it." because the workers will be better off. I think what Mr Tuiono did was very clearly articulate that their opposition to this bill was not opposition to the workers getting more money. I commend the Green Party for their position on that basis.But I think the most telling comment of the first reading was Penny Simmonds because she asked a simple question and that question was this: imagine what we would be debating if a National-led Government was doing this. These guys would be going to war with a centre-right Government that treated workers so disgracefully as they are treating workers today.I don't want to sound like I'm being critical of the unions or of Kristine Bartlett because I think she does represent the face of a very very important workforce who worked incredibly hard to get the settlement they got five years ago. But where are they in this discussion? Why aren't they singing from the rafters against this Government? The simple reason is: they haven't had a chance. They probably didn't even know this bill was coming to the House because we didn't until yesterday or this morning. So I'd like to hear from Kristine Bartlett. I'd like to hear from E tū. I'd like to hear from the NZNO but we won't—not today at least because they've been marginalised from the process.In the committee of the whole House there are a number of very important questions that we need to be asking on behalf of workers and also their employers who as Penny Simmonds and I have pointed out in the first reading speeches are under crushing pressure. This Government thinks that because they're not public sector organisations and that some of them are allied to retirement villages that do pretty well out of property that they don't deserve the fairness of having their costs recovered. Most of them—many of them at least—are not-for-profits; well they're not-for-loss either. Zero is a very small number but they've fallen below that because of the neglect and the disgraceful treatment by this Government of those organisations. I think they deserve better.So in the committee of the whole House we really need to examine the funding elements of this. We have no idea how much this is costing whether the employers have been engaged on the degree to which it was sufficient. Remember when we did this in 2017 there were about four or five issues that the committee had to deal with—and the Ministry of Health and the Government to its credit actually adjusted the funding formula to acknowledge equity sufficiency and the issue of relativity with supervisors. Why would one want to be a supervisor in an aged-care facility of those care and support workers if the benefit of that was only cents in an hour—and in fact that was a problem that needed to be addressed. The leave liability issues: remember there was a lot of built-up leave that the ministry hadn't originally acknowledged and put into the funding envelope. And then general funding provisions generally. We need to reconcile the offer made by Health New Zealand to the Aged Care Association and members of 1.9 percent with this. Is that 1.9 percent over and above this offer? Is it meant to be paid out of that offer? There is a very murky kind of a world here and we don't have the opportunity to examine that through the select committee.So the Minister better lock himself in because I think there are a variety of questions that we need to ask on behalf of both those workers and the aged-care sector to make sure that that crushing pressure that they're under doesn't get worse and lead them to go to the wall because this Government was too lazy to negotiate sooner.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The question is that the motion be agreed to."