Mitchell Clayton: Home and Community Support (Payment for Travel Between Clients) Settlement Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMitchell Clayton: Home and Community Support (Payment for Travel Between Clients) Settlement Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 16 February 2016. Volume:711;Page:9013. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First): It gives me great pleasure to stand on behalf of New Zealand First to talk in the Committee of the whole House with regard to the Home and Community Support (Payment for Travel Between Clients) Settlement Bill. We absolutely concur with what has been said by the Labour Party members with regard to this bill: it is well and truly overdue. It should have happened years ago and it is great to see that the Committee stage is finally taking place here today under—almost—urgency.There will be a lot of people at home who will be sitting back watching this conversation take place. It will be giving them a great amount of pleasure as it does me particularly when I think about my own grandmother who sadly has passed away. She relied heavily on those people—who were paid very poor wages—coming into her home to give her care and help. These workers give support and help to the most vulnerable people of our society—people who have worked hard their entire life and paid their taxes—who then see those workers unfairly treated and being paid very very small amounts of money to do probably the most important work that anybody could do which is to give care and support to those people who have created New Zealand the great country we live in.The travel time and the costs incurred to get to clients when you are doing this sort of work are horrendous. In some of the larger electorates and provinces around the country the travel time can be hours. When you go to people’s homes and give support and help you incur costs in terms of fuel and maintenance for your vehicle and for this bill to address that issue is absolutely fundamental. But it is not just about recognising the cost involved in travelling that distance. It is also about recognising the time and allowing the minimum wage as a bare minimum to be paid is I think a very good step in the right direction. But it is not good enough fundamentally going forward.We would like to see some more work done in this area to make sure that the wages are fair and adequate. This is an area that is not being looked after as far as funding goes. We are talking about workers who are paid largely a very low wage. If you go to those retirement villages to those homes to those people who ask for and need this care you will see that the questions and the concerns that are raised by not only the workers but also the people who are being looked after show that the pay is just substandard. We need to put a priority on looking after the workers who are in this sector. One of the lowest paid professions in New Zealand needs to be looked at as one of the most highly regarded positions that anybody could take on.Barbara Stewart: Treating the most vulnerable.CLAYTON MITCHELL: That is right. Treating the most vulnerable workers should be an absolute priority for this Government. We do have to say that this is a good bill. It does not go right to the end where we would like to see it and more work will need to be done in alignment with the cross-party accord to see those wages raised considerably. But certainly being able to be remunerated for the time it takes to travel to a workplace is absolutely fundamental for this bill. We will certainly be supporting this bill through and we look forward to seeing it come through by 1 March. Thank you.