Hipkins ChrisCHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I rise to support the Minimum Wage (Contractor Remuneration) Amendment Bill full-throatedly because I believe that this bill reflects many of the pressures people are facing in the modern workforce and in the modern economy. We have to accept the fact that in the Western economy effort and contribution have been decoupled from reward. That is the simple reality of the modern workforce. People are going to work every day working hard and creating the conditions for prosperity and yet they are not sharing in that prosperity. While people on higher incomes are enjoying prosperity those who help them to create the wealth are not. That is a reality of the modern economy. They keep being promised jam tomorrow while they watch people higher up the economic ladder tucking into a three-course buffet dinner and it is not good enough. I will tell you that the members on the opposite side turn a blind eye to that and they are irresponsible if they ignore the growing groundswell of support amongst people in low-income jobs who are increasingly frustrated and angry with the fact that they are not getting their fair share of the economic reward and of the rewards for success in this economy. The people out there delivering leaflets for our local supermarkets in a howling Wellington southerly help to create the massive profits that Progressive Enterprises and Foodstuffs—i.e. Countdown and Pak 'N Save—are enjoying and yet they are not enjoying a share of that themselves. They are not even getting paid the minimum wage. So when this Government talks about choice who are they talking about the choice for? It is not for the people who are offered the opportunity to take a contract that is worth less than the minimum wage on a take-it-or-leave-it basis—they do not get a choice. The only choice they get is to not work. I think it is wrong that we say to people that they should not have the opportunity to work unless they are willing to work for below the minimum wage. The question that I have got for the members opposite is: if they think that that is right why do they purport to support the minimum wage in the first place? The minimum wage is meaningless if there are so many loopholes that firms can simply get out of paying it by using contractor arrangements. Let me look at another example that I came across recently of people who are barely earning the minimum wage despite doing work that I would have assumed was relatively lucrative. It is some of the contractors whom I met who are working on the roll-out of fibre for ultra-fast broadband. They explained to me the chain of the contracting that people go through before any money reaches them. The Government have Crown Fibre Holdings who let a contract to Chorus who let a contract to Downer Group who let a contract to a principal contractor who then lets a contract to a subcontractor who then hires labour on a casual basis. That is the layer of contracting and every step of the way someone is clipping the ticket so that by the time you get to the person who is in the street putting the cables into the ground they are earning barely minimum wage if that. They are often contractors who have then got all of the overheads that go with being a contractor as well and yet they are doing a job that traditionally would have been regarded as the role of an employee—and they are barely earning the minimum wage. That is wrong. It is morally wrong that we have created that environment where people who are out there working hard and creating the conditions for economic prosperity for everybody are not getting their fair share of that. The members opposite can go on and on and try to discredit this bill by making claims about it that simply are not true but it is time they confronted the reality that a growing number of New Zealanders are feeling frustrated and let down and left behind and forgotten. If we do not want to have a situation like they have had in the UK where they ended up with Brexit or in the US where they are ending up with the rise of Donald Trump we would be wise to consider that. We would be wise to consider the fact that every New Zealander has the right if they are willing to go out and work for it to enjoy a share of the economic prosperity that others enjoy. They are willing to go out and work for it and they are not getting that reward. The members opposite can continue to turn a blind eye to that but as the groundswell and the growing numbers of people who feel disenfranchised and forgotten continues to expand they will inevitably feel the consequences of that. I think we are a better country than that. New Zealand workers deserve a better deal than that. This bill is only a small step but a significant one and an important one and it has my full support.