Beaumont Carol: Minimum Wage and Remuneration Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Beaumont Carol: Minimum Wage and Remuneration Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:652;Page:1682] 
CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour) 
: 
 I start by acknowledging Darien Fenton as my Labour colleague already has. I acknowledge her determination and her commitment to trying to improve the situation of low-paid workers in this country. This bill is another attempt to try to make sure that we provide comprehensive protection to workers in this country. I also acknowledge the chair of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee at the time Mark Gosche who also worked hard on this legislation. 
At its most fundamental this bill is about ensuring a socially acceptable minimum wage that is universally applied and that is a right irrespective of the technical nature of the employment relationship. In other words everyone should get a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. No one should earn less than a socially accepted minimum. In economic hard times such as those we are facing now it is particularly important to protect all workers in this country especially low-paid and vulnerable workers. They explicitly are the people whom this bill intends to cover. 
Many minimum rights including the minimum wage apply only to employees and many hard-working New Zealanders are not entitled to a socially acceptable minimum wage because they are not employees—they are termed and defined as contractors. That is unfair and I am sure that most New Zealanders would see it as unfair. 
Interestingly enough  
Fair Go 
 screened a programme last year—I was interviewed for it—about the leaflet deliverers we have just been talking about. It showed real examples of what people were earning delivering leaflets. There was an unprecedented level of response to that programme. Never before had so many people contacted the show. New Zealanders thought it was unfair. 
In New Zealand and other developed countries so-called non-standard work has been increasing and often that work is precarious and low-paid. In fact it is quite clear that in some industries and sectors contracting models have been developed as a way of reducing wages undermining security increasing risk and maximising the cost to workers. We all need to recognise—and the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee recognised—that there is a distinction to be made between those at the lower end of the contractor spectrum and those at the higher end. We are not trying to capture those at the higher end. This bill is targeting vulnerable workers. 
Dealing with the area of non-standard work is not easy and I commend the select committee for trying very hard to deal with this issue and get it right. The fact that something is not easy does not mean we do not do it. We should not avoid what is difficult. Other countries have managed to find solutions to this issue. The United Kingdom for example has legislation that ensures that the minimum wage applies to workers not just employees. In Canada there are similar provisions. Just to be very clear I note that the scope of this bill has been narrowed after submissions to target in particular vulnerable workers who are listed in a schedule. It specifically excludes things like household arrangements. 
I also acknowledge the hard work of organisations like the Council of Trade Unions and Business New Zealand which worked with members of the select committee and others to try to find ways of making this work and came up with very real suggestions that have been incorporated into the amendments now before us. 
I want to make sure that people understand what this bill is really about. Some people have said that it is unworkable. Actually the requirements to comply with in the amended bill would be that the contractor was engaged by an organisation or a principal to provide one of the services listed in the schedule. Those parties would agree on what was a reasonable time to provide the service and on the remuneration rate for such a provision of service. 
That should equate at least to the minimum remuneration rate to be set from time to time by Order in Council—in other words the minimum wage. And shock horror the principal would have to keep records as to the hours and remuneration paid—full stop; that is it. That does not sound too hard to me. 
Finally I speak in support of the recent amendment to lift in a staged way the minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2011.