Lees-Galloway Iain: Minimum Wage (Starting-out Wage) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Lees-Galloway Iain: Minimum Wage (Starting-out Wage) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 21 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8864. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North) 
: 
 What a bizarre and shambolic contribution that was from David Bennett. He started off talking about the Australian Labor Party. He is so embarrassed by this piece of legislation the Minimum Wage (Starting-out) Wage Amendment Bill he could not even bring himself to talk about the New Zealand Parliament let alone the bill that the New Zealand Parliament is addressing at the moment. Then he went on to talk about the hierarchy of wages and actually probably got to the heart of what this legislation is about because he said he wants to ensure that people start on the lowest rate possible. He wants to make sure that the entry rates are lower so that the whole hierarchy comes down. That party believes in dropping wages. Its own leader said: “I would love to see wages drop.” That is because the National Party believes in driving wages down keeping workers down. That is all that the National Party lives for. 
But I have got to be honest I like quoting David Bennett. My favourite one from a few years ago is: “The Government is not here to make your life better.” That was my particular favourite from David Bennett: “The Government is not here to make your life better.” My goodness we could not ask for a better representation of David Bennett’s mantra of “The Government is not here to make your life better.” than this piece of legislation. 
But that is not all. David Bennett has had a range of views on this issue. A mere 2 years ago David Bennett said: “I encourage those people who are listening and members in the House to look at this issue in the wider perspective of what we want to achieve in setting some incentives and some direction and not try to scaremonger or create perceptions that if we have a lower rate of pay at the first level of employment those opportunities will necessarily be provided.” David Bennett take a bow. I could not agree more with what David Bennett said 2 years ago in this House. 
It was not just David Bennett; it was Jackie Blue as well I think at the time. Paula Bennett did not like the idea of youth rates and the Minister of Labour at the time Kate Wilkinson—whatever has happened to her? She did not agree with youth rates either. This National Party flip-flops all over the place. It was in favour of it when it was in Opposition then it was opposed to it when it was in Government. Now a couple of years later in Government it is in favour of it again. It is all at sea. What an absolute shambles this Government is. 
Let us be real about what this bill truly represents. It represents the failure of this Government. It represents the failure of the National Government to grow the economy. It represents the failure of the National Government to create more jobs. It represents the failure of the National Government to keep people in education to make sure there are places available at universities and at polytechnics and in apprenticeships. It is an absolute demonstration of what happens when a Government comes to power with absolutely no economic plan at all. 
So what we have got is people losing jobs at Telecom in the productive sector people losing engineering jobs and people losing high-skill high-wage jobs so now more and more of those people are competing with youngsters for those entry-level jobs at McDonald’s at Burger King at Wendy’s at Pak ’N Save at Countdown. That is the real problem here. Those jobs which should be the entry-level jobs and often are the minimum wage jobs are the jobs where basically youngsters were the only people applying for them. Now young people face massive competition from people who have been turfed out of their jobs because this economy is so weak. 
And look we accept that there is a certain nature of evolution in the job market. Some jobs will come and some will go. Some industries will rise some businesses will rise; others will fall. But as businesses fall if the economy is in good health there will be other jobs for people to go to. There will be other high-skill high-wage jobs for people to go to. But no the only places where there are new jobs are the fast-food and supermarket industries which is why this bill the Minimum Wage (Starting-out Wage) Amendment Bill is being passed by this Government—because young people are having to compete so hard against the older workforce for those low-skill low-wage jobs. 
 What happened to the aspiration? What happened to the brighter future? 
David Bennett 
: What happened to Julia Gillard? 
Jami 
-Lee Ross 
: Oh she’s gone. 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY 
: Where did it all go? It has all gone to Australia. That is right—they have all flown to Australia. Members opposite can say what they like about what is happening with the Australian Government at the moment they can say whatever they like but the Australians are taking our talented young people. People are seeing more opportunity in Australia than they are seeing in New Zealand so if I were those members I would not be crowing about what is happening in Australia because the Australians are still doing a better job than any of those members could do in Government. That is the real situation. 
Look there is no justice in telling young people that their work is worth less than that of somebody else who is doing the same job as them and is just a couple of years older. That is unjustifiable discrimination. This House has been doing a very good job of dealing with other forms of unjustifiable discrimination in the past few weeks and yet here the National Government is reintroducing another form of absolutely unjustifiable discrimination. 
The fact is that the thing the Government says this bill is supposed to achieve which is to give young people a supposed leg-up by allowing them to get into a job at a lower wage rate already exists. It already exists and yet we still have massive youth unemployment we still have no growth in jobs and we still have no growth in the economy. So doing more of what we have already got is not going to change things. That is the real situation. This bill is simply a representation of this Government’s failure. 
Under National’s watch 72000 young New Zealanders aged between 18 and 30 have disappeared to Australia because that is where the job opportunities are that is where the wages are that is where the good working conditions are and that is where the unions are strong. Paying lower wages eroding workers’ rights and beating up the unions will only send more of our talented valuable young people away overseas and it is more and more likely that they will be lost to us for ever. 
John Key has lost his ambition. He has lost the vision for a brighter future. He is content with New Zealand being mediocre and second-best. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: He’s ambiguous for New Zealand. 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY 
: He is ambiguous for New Zealand. He is content with our country being a place of low wages and low opportunity and people are leaving in droves for better opportunities overseas. 
You do not improve the lot of our future generations by paying them less for doing exactly the same job as someone who is older. There is no justification for doing it. We would like to see the evidence actually. We have heard a lot of rhetoric from the National Government but we would actually like to see the evidence. I think that the National Government should listen to its own members a little bit more closely. There was Paula Bennett: “we are not convinced it would reduce youth unemployment plus it would be a distraction from the really important work of improving productivity and growing the economy in order to create long-term jobs which will keep young people in New Zealand.” Well that was 2 years ago. Where is Paula Bennett now? Why is she not focused on improving productivity? Why is she not focused on growing the economy? Why is she not focused on keeping young people here in New Zealand working for this country’s future? This Minimum Wage (Starting-out Wage) Amendment Bill demonstrates how this shambolic National Government has failed New Zealanders failed our young people and failed to grow the economy. The sooner its term comes to an end and New Zealand can be put on the path towards success the better.