Watts SimonSIMON WATTS (National—North Shore): Thank you very much Madam Speaker. You probably can't hear from the background but it's that time of the evening when we start to get into the flow of this bill. It's an absolute pleasure to stand to rise on behalf of the National Party and as the member of Parliament for the mighty North Shore to do the third and final reading in regards to the Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlements Amendment Bill.It has been a process this evening in order to pass through elements of this bill under urgency; a process I must say that's been more comprehensive on the Opposition side than this Government has done in the five long years that it should have utilised in order to avoid us even standing here this evening. But the role that we've had to do under urgency is to try and fulfil the fact that actually no feedback no select committee process and no opportunity or ability for voices to be heard in regards to feedback of this legislation has been possible. That's a great shame because we've talked about that this evening in terms of the reality of where we are because of a failure to take the right action much earlier on in the piece.I refer to the departmental disclosure statement which referred quite clearly under section 3.6 that the consultation or the discussions with the parties only occurred between 3 May 2022 and 26 May 2022. And of course we are on 22 June and the original legislation that was put in place by a National-led Government back in 2017 under what was at that point a pragmatic solution—actually quite a quantum step change in terms of a reset required and a significant injection between 15 and 50 percent pay increases for this critical workforce a reset piece of legislation that closed the gap was put in play. As a result it provided the framework and the runway I guess for the future Government to be able to use the time that they had the five-year time period in which the bill was set up before it was to be repealed to actually put in place a sustainable solution in regards to a pay discussion settlement between that workforce. But the great shame is that that process has not occurred and as a result instead of that all being done and dusted and actually the workforce and this critical workforce being able to have the ability to actually enter into those negotiations and do all that we're now basically just looking to extend this by another 18 months. That is a great shame because there was an opportunity to turn this around but that opportunity has been right and royally squandered by this Government and that is a disappointment.It was interesting in the committee stage that we went through—and I do acknowledge and I do often enjoy a little bit as much as I do enjoy that the interaction between Minister Little and that on aspects around health genuinely. Out of some Ministers when you ask questions the responses are generally quite mixed but I do recognise that the Minister generally does engage in a way in which provides responses—after a while I must say—this evening. So he can be a little bit swifter in terms of getting to the point but after seven attempts valiantly we got him there in the end. But I think that is important because we didn't have a process. For those hundreds of thousands of people at home watching this this evening we didn't have a full and comprehensive process in terms of feedback. So it is important in terms of our democracy to go through this process. I guess the element and why we're talking about this bill is to recognise that large and significant healthcare workforce that this bill is intending to deal with around their pay and compensation aspects. That workforce has been touched on and it's been interesting to hear some personal stories of my colleagues on this side. We all have examples in our lives of members of our broader family that are involved with and are cared for by these care and support workers. They do an absolutely tremendous job under what are often difficult circumstances.I have had the pleasure and still do when I am out on an ambulance doing a shift to go into rest homes quite regularly. As you can imagine there's a pretty high level of work load in that role and often the interaction in that role is with those care workers and support workers. I take my hat off in terms of what they do in often what are hugely challenging difficult circumstances and environments where with workforce shortages the burden and the pressure of that role on those individuals is very very high. They are often not necessarily equipped particularly—you know we talk about these aged-care facilities that are all gloss the nice flash ones you see on TV but the reality is that that is a very small percentage of the aged-care sector. Many are voluntarily organisationally led. They are significantly struggling around fiscal elements because of the funding model and not only the funding model in regards to their workforce which is what we were trying to get out of the Minister tonight which is: does the funding envelope for this bill actually reflect the true cost burden that goes on to those entities as a result of this change. That's important because there's a whole lot of other deficits or costs that that sector faces that they just simply cannot afford—the fact that they have to therefore absorb out of their other baseline funding the costs regarding increases in staff salaries.As we know and we've canvassed 70 percent of these entities total expenditure budgets relate to staff costs and that is a considerable element and that is in this environment with the impact of inflation the impact of attractive opportunities within other aspects of the sector or at the moment offshore primarily. The ability to retain this such important workforce is a significant challenge. So the importance of this bill in order to be able to provide some level of certainty and stability in terms of the pay of those critical elements of our health workforce is an element that I think we should have done better and we still must do better in regards to the way in which we treat them because trust and confidence in terms of this workforce is so important. You can thrash and stretch and take for granted a little bit a workforce but at the end of the day that can only take them so far and you cannot continue to sustain that level of pressure without expecting and not being surprised that they're going to end up leaving the workforce potentially not go into other employment or actually leave New Zealand full stop. So we must get our healthcare workforce and the way in which we retain that workforce in this country sorted. We've been raising this as an issue pretty much since I've been in this House in regards to the challenges and we haven't seen the sustainable change in plans that we should have had which would in part have avoided where we are this evening.I think the other aspect just to recognise is that we have sort of been a little bit flippant around the fact that this wasn't thought of until a month out from where we are today but that's the reality. You sort of reflect on this and you go Surely not. Surely that can't be right." I can imagine people at home going "That can't be right." But that is the reality of where we are and we've talked about and evidenced it this evening and that's a great shame. Whether it's the fact that officials or whatever have been distracted by other aspects at the end of the day Kiwis want accountability from their Government they want accountability for delivery they want accountability from their Ministers and they just want to see that when someone says they're going to get something done they're going to get it done. The challenge here and what we've seen through this bill is that the reality is that we've got a Government that makes a lot of promises does not have ability to deliver and as a result someone pays the cost and the cost in this example is going to be paid by some of the most vulnerable workforce. I commend this bill to the House."