White HelenHELEN WHITE (Labour): I worked as an employment lawyer for about 25 years and I watched the deterioration of people's wages over that time. If you want to google for those at home please google the wage that most people in New Zealand get. You'll find it's actually incredibly low and you'll see a chart that goes from low to an incredibly small group of people at the top. They're such a small group. Most people are earning under $70000. Most people—and by far the majority—are earning those lower amounts of money.When I was working as a lawyer there were some cases that haunted me. I remember one woman who was a caregiver. She was in her 60s. She was still on just over the minimum wage. She had been working where she had to lift patients and as a consequence she'd actually worn herself out. So the response to that was to frustrate her employment which meant that she lost her job without compensation. That woman fits a group of people who are incredibly vulnerable. They are often not in a union they have got no protections around them and they have all the hallmarks that are in this legislation of a group that would be covered by one of these minimum standards. So for example they are on low pay they have little bargaining power and they lack any kind of pay progression. They have inadequate pay; they are not able to move; and they have very very flexible work hours. They used to be on zero contracts; they used to be on flexible contracts. They had very little security. Those people we cannot afford to keep like that in this society. It's an international phenomenon. People like Joseph Stiglitz have talked about the damage it has done. And do you know what actually happens? Actually what happens is the taxpayer ends up forking out because those people cannot make ends meet. The taxpayer ends up paying out in some other form instead of us building a society that's based on an affordable good economy—an economy where people get enough to eat enough to pay the rent. That's what we have to build. So it is incredibly important that we have a floor. In an industry they're all different so this will provide a floor. It will say OK so you're a seamstress. OK so you're a bus driver. Well you have to be able to work as a bus driver and you're living in Auckland and it's actually a really expensive place to live." Actually what we've done to those people is absolutely appalling.I can tell you another case that haunts me. It was the bus drivers in Auckland. I wrote the strike notice for the bus drivers. Do you know what it said? It said "They would go and take their toilet breaks." That's what the strike notice said. They were locked out. They didn't even object to the split shifts that they were working where they sit in the middle of the day for hours without pay. That's how downtrodden that system was. As a consequence of it being that downtrodden we end up with a system where—even when things are improving a bit—we cannot get enough bus drivers in Auckland and we have had major issues this year with bus drivers and ferry drivers et cetera because those are low-paid industries. It is causing us real grief as a country that we have not built into our system the maintenance of the workers that we have who are on those lower incomes. I'm not just talking low; I'm talking lower-middle. When I hear people talk about the cost of living and say this will rise because consumers will pay the price I'd ask the Opposition to consider who those consumers are. Who are the consumers who are having the hardest time actually buying fresh fruit and vegetables at the moment? Because it's these workers that this will protect. We have to get the wages of people in this country up. It's why I came here. It's what I want to focus on. I don't want it all to be about benefits and handouts and bits and pieces and grace and favour; I want it to be about people earning a decent living in this country and this legislation will do it."