Power Simon: Minimum Wage Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Power Simon: Minimum Wage Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:608;Page:6031] 
SIMON POWER (NZ National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 I rise on the third reading of this bill to make some short comment in relation to the bill. For the record National actually supported this bill going to a select committee to see what it was that the Government had in mind for the bill and in particular how the legislation would affect young people in training. At that time the National Party was open-minded about the costs that would be incurred during that process and how the process would pan out. 
In fact the explanatory note of the bill that was referred to the select committee included a statement that caught the eye of members on this side of the House. Under “Costs” in the section headed “Statement of net benefit of this proposal” was the statement: “The proposed change may have a small adverse impact on the Government’s fiscal position. The fiscal impact would come from the increased benefit payments that may occur as a result of potential job losses over time.” The most crucial part though of that initial description was the line that followed: “It is therefore unclear what the overall fiscal impact would be.” So at that point National supported the bill going to a select committee to try to get a better handle on what the fiscal impact of the introduction of this type of scheme would be. 
Unfortunately during the course of the select committee inquiry we found that staff of the advising department the Department of Labour were unable to advise us how those costs could be measured. They were unable to forecast for us the fiscal impact of this particular legislation and in my view that made it impossible for members of that select committee rightly to assess the overall fiscal impact of the bill. [ 
Interruption 
] Well the member Jill Pettis chirps in but National did support this bill proceeding to the select committee in a genuine attempt to find out what the fiscal impact of the bill would be. I was on the select committee at that time; that member who yelled out across the House was not. I say that when the departmental officials came before the select committee Government members on that committee—one of whom is sitting in the House now—were very concerned that the department was unable to provide accurate information about the impact of this bill. They were unable to provide us with any forecasts about how it would affect the job market or about the fiscal implications of what this bill would do to young people in training. These are quite serious issues and not ones that should just be tossed aside as that member has done. 
There are other costs of course associated with implementing this legislation. They are broken into two sets if one likes. The first is the cost to business in the sense that the bill adds to the already enlarging list of costs that business faces—the renationalisation of accident compensation the Employment Relations Act health and safety legislation and paid parental leave not to mention current plans to introduce a further week of annual leave. At that stage during the select committee process we were worried that the bill would further increase those costs to business by increasing the wages of trainee employees who are only there as a result of an industry training organisation arrangement—which is a pretty straightforward and satisfactory way of bringing young people into training in the first instance. 
But what made this legislation particularly difficult for members of the Opposition to support was the second impact that this bill would have—the impact on employees themselves. We could not get clear from the officials whether this bill would have an impact on whether business would take on these young people in any event. The issue that concerned members on this side of the House quite seriously was that business would simply stop taking young people on because of the increase in compliance costs that would be brought about by this legislation. That raised the point that the people who would miss out were the very people this bill was designed to help. It was not acceptable to members on this side of the House that we support the enactment of legislation that would have that impact on employees and would have the impacts on employers that I have outlined. And we were still unable to ascertain from departmental officials what the forecasts of the employment and fiscal impacts were. 
I simply say in concluding that to pass legislation with all those factors outstanding is simply not good enough and that is the reason National will not be supporting this bill in the third reading.