Martin Tracey: Minimum Wage (Starting-out Wage) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Martin Tracey: Minimum Wage (Starting-out Wage) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 19 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8634. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First) 
: 
 Kia ora. Thank you Mr Chair. I rise to take a call on the Minimum Wage (Starting-out Wage) Amendment Bill. I will address a couple of issues that Mr Sabin and Mr Auchinvole raised. 
First of all Mr Sabin with the story that he graced us with in regard to employers coming to see him to say that they were unable to employ young people with the skills that they required to gain employment inside their industry. I recognise Mr Sabin’s point. I recognise the points of those employers. However his answer—this Government’s answer—is completely misguided. If this Government truly wanted to support those local employers to employ local young people then why would it have removed the funding from places like Otorohanga where you have a massively successful model where the community has come together to train local young people with local skills for local employment where the Mayor of Otorohanga has brought together those employers and said: “What are the skills you need guys? What are the skills we need for our young people to actually be able to get out there and gain work just down the road from where they live?”. That is what happened. Employers came in and they highlighted—in this instance in the Wintec prospectus—which of those skills were the ones that were needed. Local government worked with Wintec and said: “We will give you a building with zero rent—zero rent—so that you can actually come here and train our young people in only the skills that will gain them employment.” That is something that would actually work not paying somebody less to do the work. Where is the incentive for young people? I ask Mr Sabin how many 16 17 18 and 19-year-olds he has consulted in his constituency about this policy which he stands by and says is the answer for us. 
I also want to pick up on the comments made by Mr Auchinvole. I am not sure whether Mr Auchinvole was here in the country in the 1990s—whether he was here the last time we had a youth wage actually put into place. I am not sure whether Mr Auchinvole is aware of the statistics around what happened the last time a youth wage was brought into this country and the displacement that Mr Goff talked about. I can send to Mr Auchinvole’s office some of the suicide statistics for older males from about that time when they were laid off through the recession when they found their companies and employers going into receivership and they were trying to pay their mortgages. They were trying to feed their children and they could not get a job at the local gas station pumping gas because they were undercut every single time by a young person who could be paid less. Those are real statistics. I can send them to Mr Auchinvole’s office if he would like them. This is going to create the same difficulty and it will create no more jobs. 
Recently the Ministry of Social Development and the Minister for Social Development pulled back funding from the community answers around youth employment into major centralisation particularly inside of Auckland with only four deliverers. Again we have been down this pathway before. It is not a new idea. It was not a good idea then and it is not a good idea now. We have young people who need to be able to support themselves particularly at age 18 and 19 yet we are going to put them on something that none of us in this House would work for. None of us would take that job yet we say to them “You will.” and we have combined it with some legislation inside the social development portfolio that will force them to do so. To have the word “choice” used at any time around this issue when speaking to 16 17 18 and 19-year-olds is a fallacy. I would say again Mr Sabin: how many 16 17 18 and 19-year-olds have you spoken to? I would suggest very few Mr Sabin. 
Mike Sabin 
: Well I’ve got plenty of young constituents I’ve talked to actually. 
TRACEY MARTIN 
: Well that would be lovely Mr Sabin. Go out into your schools. Go out into the schools up there Mr Sabin and let us see when they actually get the vote whether they would keep you there. These are the voters of the future. The fact that you will pass this legislation before these young people have any way shape or form to either keep you in office or take you out of office is disrespectful. This is a group of people who are without power inside this legislative chamber and we are taking advantage of them. Your party is taking advantage of them—