Menéndez March RicardoRICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Thank you Madam Speaker. In my speech I want to acknowledge all the bus drivers; the cafe workers; the people who service our restaurants where many of our families may be going out for a Christmas dinner; our security guards who may be keeping an eye as we do our Christmas shopping; the commercial cleaners who will be keeping our gyms for example clean as we stay well; our early childhood education (ECE) teachers who will be looking after tamariki and no doubt many politicians will be visiting those centres for photo ops; and our grocery supermarket workers who we lauded as essential during the pandemic. Many of those workers could have had better working conditions better pay safer working environments should fair pay agreements have actually proceeded and continued.I also want to pay tribute to the union movement. Because through their organising through actually being in touch with the community through using evidence they have put forward really sensible recommendations to ensure that actually we centre the wellbeing of the hundreds of thousands of workers who we often talk about in this House but who the Government has chosen to turn their backs on.Throughout the debate there was no—absolutely no—mention of evidence to back up this repeal. There's plenty of evidence to support why having a minimum standard across a sector is good. There's evidence overseas from the OECD. Our counterparts in Australia are a great example of why this kind of legislation does work and has endured over time—in fact over several conservative Governments while this conservative Government has repealed one of the biggest opportunities to improve working conditions many many times in less than three weeks and in a country like this one where we actually experience a really big number of work-related injuries and deaths.So the message that this Government is sending is that It's OK. People can continue experiencing poverty wages and unsafe working conditions because so long as we enable the market to do its bidding then they'll be able to live good lives."  because that has worked really well over the past few decades because this country apparently is at the top when it comes to people's living standards when it comes to wages versus rents and versus the cost of living.This Government thinks that the trickle-down economics will deliver change for the workers and it's vibes-based politics. The Minister should be ashamed that she has been unable to substantiate the arguments. She has been unable to present evidence and instead of being able to back up her belief as to why the legislation has to be repealed she has continuously stated that she believes that this is the right thing to do. Why? Because they campaigned on it. Did they campaign on this based on evidence? No they did not. They were not even able during the election to call fair pay agreements what they were. They call it every other name to be able to justify their position based on a house of cards based on absolutely zero evidence. [Interruption]If the members there are getting heated up and angry about this then I suggest that next time they visit an ECE centre for a photo opportunity the next time they do their shopping or take public transport that they look those workers in their faces and they tell those workers that they deserve the poverty wages that they have and that they don't have a plan; they don't actually have a plan to improve the working conditions of those workers.Carl Bates: Lower cost of living is what they deserve. Lower inflation.RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: Yeah. Mate you can't lower inflation by keeping workers in poverty wages. Get a grip on reality. For some of you who may have entered into this place you're so eager—they're very eager; sorry Madam Speaker. They're very eager to turn their backs on the communities that they campaigned on and those members should be ashamed. For a Government that likes to claim that the left doesn't own the workers they surely like to think that they do and they're obsessed with this individual ownership. What they believe is that the employers own the workers; that actually the workers should not be able to have power.Hon Andrew Bayly: What garbage.RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: Garbage? The moment that we hear from this Government after this repeal that they have a plan that they have a plan to lift wages that they have a plan to guarantee safe working conditions I will believe those words. Because right now the only thing that we have heard is vibes. It's unsubstantiated arguments where they have just told us that they think they have a mandate. But you know what? We're seeing a rising tide of workers organising to oppose the vibes-based policy that this Government is proposing.This Government should be concerned that by undermining working conditions by continuing to keep the workers who serve them—who literally serve them at restaurants who serve them at the public transport—they'll be rising up against them. And this Government should not take their support for granted. Because in a few years' time what they'll realise is that their continuous vibes-based policy based on zero arguments will result in poverty wages continuing while the cost of living continues to go up and people are unable to pay their rent and are continuing to work multiple jobs just to survive. If they continue to turn their face away from the streets away from people living in poverty what they will see is the continuous people being failed by successive Governments.Carl Bates: I was at a food bank on Friday food bank on Monday. Serving food on Monday. Don't tell me we're not looking at workers. We're here.RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: So I encourage those members—yeah picture these workers. Because clearly the Minister chose to not engage with any of those workers when it came to the substance of this bill. In fact what we're seeing is a Government that wants to diminish scrutiny on the proposals that they're putting forward both in process and in practice.This Government could have centred the voices of those most impacted by having taken submissions. They chose not to. They didn't give a reason for it. So the Green Party will be committed to fighting every step of the way to ensure that our workers continue to be valued; to ensure that our workers continue receiving the wages that they deserve; and that in fact we improve those conditions so that the workers that we are supposed to serve have livable wages not the poverty wages that this Government has guaranteed them for years to come.So in closing I want to remind the Government members that they don't have a plan to actually address the cost of living crisis and that fair pay agreements were one of the things in place to guarantee improvements to the working conditions of those workers. They claim that they will give flexibility to those small-business owners but they don't want to talk to the business model that some of these businesses they claim to talk to have. Because if those businesses can't actually afford to pay their workers decent wages they don't deserve to then claim to be business owners.We do have small businesses who do their work to guarantee good wages and actually the research shows that those working environments do lead to higher productivity; they lead to higher satisfaction. If they think that the flexibility of poverty wages is going to lead to any of those outcomes I suggest that they go back to school and read up on basic economics. Because the economic illiteracy that they have presented with this bill is frankly a disservice to the 200000 to 300000 workers who would have benefited from fair pay agreements.So as we head into Christmas I want to remind the Government of the cancel culture that they continue to engage with: cancelling the fair pay agreement cancelling the clean car discount. This is not a Government with ideas. This is a Government that is here to take us backwards turn the clock back to the failed neo-liberal ideology that has caused rising inequality in this country and I look forward in terms of this Government to be proved right in three years. Our people actually do not deserve this. Our people do not deserve a Government that does not care about inequality that does not care about poverty and that does not care about working people.Shame on this Government. The Greens will ensure that this is a one-term Government and that the workers take back the power in this Chamber."