Logie JanGENERAL DEBATEJAN LOGIE (Green): I move That the House take note of miscellaneous business. Today I want to do the biggest shout-out ever to all of the essential workers in this country. This is on behalf of the Green Party but I also suspect definitely on behalf of most New Zealanders to acknowledge all of those workers who have done such an incredible job of keeping things running making sure we could all put food on the table and just looking after us. I particularly want to acknowledge some of those workers: so doctors and nurses and shelf stackers and all of the different staff working in our rest homes; the cleaners who have made spaces safe for us; security guards who have kept us safe as we've gone about our essential business; the bus and train drivers; the truck drivers who have kept produce moving across the country to end up on our tables; the crisis workers; the food bank staff; the public servants; those working in Work and Income who have just had a huge number of calls; those working in the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment answering the questions about who the essential workers are; all of those background policy workers and legislation drafters who have ensured that this Government could do its job in keeping the country running and establishing a pathway forward for us all to come out of this; the supermarket staff who have been there every day and who sadly sometimes—SPEAKER: I'm sorry I'm just going to interrupt the member and warn her that I was a minute late in starting the clock. So it will finish when it says one.JAN LOGIE: Thank you Mr Speaker. I'll restate that: the supermarket staff who have been there every day who sadly sometimes have seen us at our worst and have kept turning up for work. The Green Party is grateful to every single one of those workers and wants to acknowledge them in this House. All of these people and more have made themselves leave the safety of their own bubbles for the purpose of keeping things running and looking after us. They've put themselves and their families at increased risk to do this. We've always been reliant on them but I don't think we've ever seen it more clearly than we do now and I really think that it's our turn now in this House to ensure that we are looking after them. Too many of those essential workers are still working for the minimum wage or just above. They are going home at the end of the week after putting their lives and their families at risk for us and have been stressed and worried about being able to put food on the table for their families because their incomes are not sufficient to give them security to do that. I don't think that reflects the will of the country. There's been an acknowledgment of the importance of these workers and I think that an appropriate response to that acknowledgment is to ensure that these staff are properly paid and given good conditions in their workplaces.So the Greens have come up with a proposal of three things that we can do as a Government—as a Parliament I hope—to help look after these amazing people in our communities and to help create a fairer society for all of us. The first is to get the fair pay agreement legislation back into the House and in place so that industries can set that standard of what is the foundation of fair conditions for all the staff across an entire sector such as supermarkets or security guards or cleaners so that as a country we do like Australia where we've got that all sorted and it's not part of the pressure on business to work out what they can afford and what they can't. It takes that out of the equation and this is part of how we can support our businesses moving forward out of this stage of our COVID recovery into a better future. It's actually setting up a framework to help them focus on growing productivity and selling their business rather than competing on driving down wages which doesn't serve them and it doesn't serve the people of this country.The other thing is for Government—where we have the control of the money going towards paying somebody's wages whether they're being contracted to provide security services for Work and Income or whether they are working for a Crown entity or in a community organisation who's primarily funded by Government—to commit to ensuring that they're paying enough for all of those staff to have a living wage. If we want the living wage and we're the ones who have got the money then I think it's on this Government for us to be able to do that and make sure that all those staff are properly recognised for the incredible work that they are doing in their communities. There's a brighter future ahead of us if only we grab it.