Leary IngridINGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): If there's one reason for workers in New Zealand not to vote for the National Party or ACT next year it is around this bill. They don't like workers and they have said they will scrap the bill. Not only will they scrap this bill they will give tax breaks to the richest people in New Zealand which will involve an $18000 rebate to their leader should he become the Prime Minister. Workers need to remember that and the Opposition needs to remember that workers are not widgets.Employers have nothing to fear from this bill if they are doing business well; if they are looking after their workers. Workers are not widgets. I went to a memorial earlier this year—workers' memorial—that commemorated the lives of 63 workers in New Zealand who died in 2022. Up to 900 died from work-related illness.Now what these agreements will do is enable workers more input into the safety at their workplace. That is a conversation that needs to happen because quite frankly what happens in workplaces currently is not acceptable. Employers and workers need to work together to understand what works best and that is workplace safety it is dignity and it is also productivity.Not only is tomorrow the cleaners day but this Thursday is actually 50 years since the Equal Pay Act 1972. The reason I raise this is because at the time it was considered outrageous. That piece of legislation came through largely thanks to the actions of a Dunedin woman and the Public Service Association who took union action against Inland Revenue in 1956. That woman Jean Parker dared to question why a male worker was being paid more than her. Not only did she not receive that amount of pay her pay went down as a result. She challenged that in a court. Go forward 12 years the Equal Pay Act was put through and in 2017 the Service and Food Workers Union took a court case to balance a pay gap for workers in sectors predominately known as women's work". All of those cases and all of those scenarios involved outrage and controversy at the time. How dare people suggest that women get equal pay!Well it's the same thing that's happening now. We have a small minority of people on the opposite benches. About 5 percent of submitters are saying that in the name of flexibility they don't want to see fair pay happening. It is the usual suspects: it is women it is Māori it is Pasifika and it is ethnic people who stand to gain the most from this change in the law. They are the ones who experience the most inequality in this country and the yawning inequality gap that has got bigger and bigger over the last 30 years is a direct result of what the Opposition did to bring in the employment relations work.Let's avoid the race to the bottom. That is exactly what is going on. We need to change things up. We need to reward those employers who are treating those workers well they are already getting the benefit of productivity but they cannot compete where there is a race to the bottom.It is best practice; it is international best practice. It's been mentioned by Jan Logie—Germany France Italy Australia are all doing this; we know that it makes workers more productive. It is not something that can be transacted as mentioned by the previous speaker which against goes to the attitude of the Opposition about people in supply chain as widgets just like every other thing like material and so on. People are not inside the supply chain as widgets. They need to have minimum standards.It's not just about productivity. The overriding reason to do this is because it is the right thing to do. Workers need to remember that. Workers need to remember that this will be the biggest change in 30 years and if they vote the other lot back in not only will those tax cuts go to the rich but they will scrap this legislation and we will be back to square one. We cannot afford to let that happen. I am so proud of this bill. I am so proud that our Minister has got this piece of legislation to where it is. I am very proud to recommend it to the House."