Hague Kevin: Home and Community Support (Payment for Travel Between Clients) Settlement Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHague Kevin: Home and Community Support (Payment for Travel Between Clients) Settlement Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 11 February 2016. Volume:711;Page:8957. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KEVIN HAGUE (Green): I like to begin second reading calls by giving my thanks to the select committee staff ministry officials—some of whom are here in the Chamber today—and to the submitters who made contributions on the bill all of whom I think made the bill better and also give my praise to members of the select committee. I stood down from the Health Committee for this item of business but it seems to me that the bill is considerably improved by their efforts.The health sector probably has overall a staff that is more female than male. Many of the health occupations are ones that are typically carried out by women and therefore it is a sector that is particularly beset by the problems of pay inequity—in other words when occupations that are predominantly filled by women are systemically paid at a lower level than those with equivalent-value work filled by men. The aged-care workers both in residential care and providing home-based support have long been recognised as particular occupations where this is the case where the typically women carrying out that work have been underpaid.Other speakers in this House today have already mentioned the contribution of Judy McGregor and her fantastic report Caring Counts and I see other members nodding. I note that this whole House probably appreciates the work that she put into that. I also want to acknowledge the work that Sue Kedgley and Winnie Laban put into a joint report from the Labour Party and the Green Party looking at some of these systemic issues in the aged-care sector which also acknowledged this issue of travel times. Judy McGregor noted that the practice of not paying for travel time was both unjust and disrespectful of the workers carrying out this incredibly important work as Barbara Kuriger has just mentioned also. She asked: what does it say as a society about our valuing of older people if we treat those who are providing these basic services for older people so disrespectfully? Paying properly for travel time is a question not only of being just towards the workers involved in that sector but also of ensuring that the services themselves are viable and respectful for older people.As members know I live on the West Coast and I can see around the Chamber a number of other members from rural areas. Maureen Pugh is also from the West Coast—welcome Maureen. The simple fact is that the distances to travel between houses between clients that workers sometimes need to incorporate into their day—if those travel times are not paid for the worker cannot possibly afford to provide that service and the viability of the service itself is brought into question if these workers are not being properly paid for them.In finishing I want to just briefly note my appreciation of the role played by the unions but also in fact by the employers here who came to the committee and supported this deal. That contrasts so starkly with the behaviour of rest home employers when I as a district health board chief executive had gone to the then Minister of Health to get extra money to pay increased wages to rest home staff members. The Minister approved it the district health boards approved it and then the rest homes kept it for their bottom line rather than paying the workers. So it is great to see these home-based support organisations actually contributing to this deal and is it not great to actually make a decision through a negotiation and consensus? Let us do a bit more of that eh?