Watts SimonSIMON WATTS (National—North Shore): Well thank you very much Mr Speaker for the opportunity to speak on the Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlements Amendment Bill on its second reading. National will be supporting this bill. I must say having listened to the many contributions on this bill—some longer than others I must say; some have been reasonably brief I would say—Hon Michael Woodhouse: Very unreasonably brief.SIMON WATTS: Very unreasonably brief says the Hon Michael Woodhouse and so true he is. This is an important issue. I was reflecting on it over the break just before returning back to the House in terms of a lot of to and fro. And just listening to the last speaker Marja Lubeck in terms of throwing a little bit of mud across to the previous National Government who I think—in listening to other contributions—made under the circumstances a very pragmatic decision. A pragmatic decision in order to deal with a situation that was in front of them and a situation that was backed up with a bill that in effect gave five years in pay increases in the range of 15 to 50 percent over that period for a critical element of the workforce and enough runway I guess you could say in order for the solution to be found. I think that seems reasonable. It seems pretty pragmatic. These are complex issues and having spent my prior life sitting around the table in union-based negotiations within the healthcare sector I understand this. I understand the challenges. But at the end of the day no matter what side of the table you're sitting on you're working for the best interests particularly of your people. And you know that's it.But in this case I guess my reflection is that we are where we are firstly and I think that's important to recognise. But the challenge in what this reinforces is a Government that has squandered their opportunity and squandered five long years of Government—and I say that with an added emphasis and pausing because it does feel like five long years. And I haven't been in this House as long as many others but you know even in my short amount of time—Melissa Lee: You haven't missed very much.SIMON WATTS: —it's been a long period. Melissa Lee from behind me is saying I haven't missed much and I wish that wasn't true Melissa Lee. But she is so true. And that is a great shame because the reality is that these important care and support workers that support our most vulnerable—and I think Penny Simmonds close friend and colleague and classmate of 2020 so eloquently put in her prior speech on this that these staff and these people work in support of some of our absolutely most vulnerable. What the National Government did back when this bill was put into play was to acknowledge that that workforce did need the support and compensation in regards to that. Yeah we can argue whether it was a right or wrong thing to do at the time but we are where we are today and the challenge is and remains that the time has not been used wisely in order to put a sustainable solution in place for this so important workforce.That's the reality and people get measured by what they do not what they say. And I think that is going to be the reality and should be the reality because this Government should be held accountable in terms of what they've said and what they've done—and what they do do between now and when that option comes up for the people of New Zealand. And I'm sure you know we'll go through that at that point in time.Let's get back though in this second reading to acknowledge the fact that we are pushing this through under urgency. We are using the House's time in regards to that process and we're not affording the time—which I don't think is unreasonable but had we started this a week ago we could have done a week of consultation with key stakeholders. If we started maybe two weeks ago Minister Little we could have—maybe three? I don't want to push the boat out too far but you know we could have started—couldn't we have started this last month? I hate to say it but I mean surely surely—and I don't think there's any other examples of any other reform policies where they've just decided to make it up on the hoof. I'm looking at my colleagues for any examples. But that is the reality every time—Simon Court: Banning oil and gas was on the hoof. How about announcing a discount on fuel excise duty? That was on the hoof.SIMON WATTS: Yeah well I can hear Simon Court from ACT reeling off a long long list of examples. And one only has to open up the New Zealand Herald app every hour actually at the moment and read another example of that long long long list of aspects in terms of things being made up on the hoof.But this bill absolutely personifies I think that lack of planning in regards to where this is. And let's be fair the Government's had a lot on its plate you know: COVID and dealing with all that and I think the war in Ukraine. And what other excuses have we had that slowed them down? You know inflation and cost of living and all those things. It seems to have you know blown this Government off course. But how could you miss something like this?Nicola Grigg: They didn't set a calendar reminder.SIMON WATTS: My colleague Nicola Grigg—I don't think she was being flippant when she said Surely wouldn't you have had a calendar reminder in your inbox?"Hon Michael Woodhouse: 1900 staff somebody could have set the calendar.SIMON WATTS: Nineteen hundred staff the Hon Michael Woodhouse is reminding me about. [Interruption] Maybe the unions because we heard a great example from David Seymour before where he said actually one-third of the Government members actually have a background in terms of being union organisers so that amount of anyone probably would have had the hotline with their prior colleagues and prior lives to say "Hey team I'm sure you haven't forgotten about it but just in case we've got this pretty reasonable piece of legislation. It's about to be repealed and maybe surely you haven't forgotten about it?" I know they haven't even though we've got eight days before this is repealed and here we are in urgency going through and pushing the deadline out on this by another 18 months.I think the picture that I'm painting and it's not that difficult to paint is that you know—where was the thought and planning and consideration around such an important element for such an important group of workforce and people within our community at a time at which that workforce is absolutely under—"crisis" sort of seems like it's understated at the point at which we are now. But I recall questioning and having questions of the Minister on exactly this topic in May and June and July of last year around the healthcare workforce crisis. We had conversations in committee we had conversations because COVID was on our doorstep and the questions that we discussed across the table were: have we got enough people? What are we doing about being prepared? Have we got all that? Is someone thinking about it?The reality now is the rooster is coming home to roost on this type of legislation. The simple reality and the sad reality is that that was not and continues to not occur. Where's the accountability in terms of actually doing what is required in order to support people within this country that do so much for this country? This personifies as I said the reality of a Government that have basically you know just forgotten or left this element to the last minute and now we're in a process under urgency in terms of trying to tidy this up.National are supporting this legislation for the simple fact that we believe it's fair and reasonable to be ensuring that this workforce receives the compensation that they require. We acknowledge and the speakers previously have noted around the quantum whether that's appropriate or not. But we shouldn't be in this position. We should have surely with the capability on the other side with their relationships with the unions been able to have negotiated and worked through this well in advance and push this through in an orderly manner. But we're not and that is a great shame. And most importantly it's a great shame for those hard-working Kiwis that are doing these difficult roles under difficult circumstances. I support this bill."