Bradford Sue: Minimum Wage (New Entrants) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Bradford Sue: Minimum Wage (New Entrants) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:641;Page:11174] 
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 I would like to take just a brief call in order to make a few comments about Supplementary Order Paper 137 that has been proposed by the Minister the Hon Ruth Dyson. I do not think it is any secret to the Committee that the Green Party and I were not particularly happy with the bill as it was reported back from the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee—as I said in the House and as we stated in the minority report. However we do support the latest Supplementary Order Paper from the Minister and I would like to give some of the reasons for that. 
First of all the Supplementary Order Paper enshrines the decisions that were made by the select committee and that appear in the commentary on the bill. Secondly the Supplementary Order Paper strengthens those decisions by adding a time-bound maximum of 3 months’ service as an alternative trigger to 200 hours for the period that new entrants are required to work before they move to a full minimum wage. This is really important and that is what I am really pleased about as a number of young people work only a few hours a week and it would have taken some of them up to 6 months or even 9 months before they could have moved to the full adult wage—it would have taken them as long as that to reach the 200 hours. That provision would have applied in a lot of workplaces and any pretence that somehow it takes 6 months or 9 months to learn how to do a job to be a new entrant in a job is just ridiculous and I am really glad that this progress has been made. Thirdly and most important for me the Supplementary Order Paper is strengthened by removing the power of any future Minister of Labour to again regulate across the board for discriminatory youth rates. I would like to congratulate the Government on taking that step. 
These changes make a much better bill. They make a bill that is much closer to its original intent than that which came back from the select committee. That is why the Green Party is really happy to support this amendment and feels confident of making big progress with the bill today and when it next comes back to the House for the third reading. 
This Supplementary Order Paper and the bill as amended are an indication to employers and workers alike that across-the-board age-based discrimination has been removed from our Minimum Wage Act. It allows unions and employers to negotiate wages with certainty and not have to worry about a rogue firm gaining a competitive advantage through the hiring of low-cost young workers. I would like to thank the Minister Ruth Dyson again for drafting this Supplementary Order Paper which now enables at last the Green Party to happily support the bill. I would also like to mention and thank Peter Brown and New Zealand First for agreeing to the changes in the Supplementary Order Paper. I know the member has been very involved in the select committee and the process of this bill going through the House. I thank him and his party for their support and for making it the better bill that it has become today.