Hughes Darren: Employment Relations Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Hughes Darren: Employment Relations Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:633;Page:5032] 
DARREN HUGHES (Labour—Otaki) 
: 
 At the conclusion of that speech it is the position of the New Zealand Labour Party that we want that member of Parliament David Bennett to have a very long career in politics. We want him to be a National Party MP sitting across the House representing the values of the National Party for decades and decades to come because only then will people get to see what these people really stand for. 
That was a truly pathetic speech about some of the lowest-paid and vulnerable workers in New Zealand. Let me tell members one thing. The member started his speech by talking about family A and giving an example of a cleaning contractor at a school. He is a member of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee whose report we are debating in this Parliament tonight. If the member had done just 30 seconds of research he would know that the Ministry of Education has a collective agreement for all cleaners at schools whether they are private contractors or contracted by the board of trustees. The example he gave over a 10-minute speech was false and wrong. He got it wrong the whole time. That is the case for every single school in the public education system in New Zealand. 
I cannot speak for schools that are not part of the State system. Maybe the member knows something about schools that are not part of the public education network which Labour members of Parliament do not know about. The only schools I can think of are schools that are a secret organisation or part of a secret sect. Maybe the Exclusive Brethren church might have rules like this for the cleaners at their schools. I am a Labour MP and I do not know but I do know that his speech could have been researched and given completely differently from the way it was given tonight. 
The member got up and spoke about ordinary New Zealanders. National Party members gave those same lines when they opposed the Employment Relations Act in 2000. They said ordinary New Zealanders would lose their jobs. They said the economy would go backwards. They said no one would ever get a pay rise. Here we are 6 years later and we have the lowest unemployment rate in the world. Let me tell the member for Hamilton East about that. Those are the kinds of things we have done after 6½ years of fair industrial law for working people in New Zealand. 
Under the industrial law that we have supported by way of that legislation we have raised the minimum wage six times in 6 years. It was opposed every single time by the National Party and its friends and secret sects like the Exclusive Brethren church. These are the most extraordinary things that they say. Ever since the Exclusive Brethren bought the naming rights to the National Party became its principal sponsor and purchased the New Zealand National Party National has changed its entire view about the way employment policy goes with regard to industrial relations. Now National Party members come to the Chamber believing the Exclusive Brethren view of employment relationships which is that it is a master-servant relationship. There is a big boss and there is a little worker who has to do what he or she is told. National members are proud of that approach but we on this side of the House do not stand for that. 
We stand for employment law that protects the most vulnerable. We stand for saying that there should be laws that make sure nobody is left out because he or she has a job that does not pay much. Here is another difference from National Party members. They talk about hard workers. How do they define hard workers? By the amount of their salary and wages. If they are paid $60000 $70000 or $80000 a year they are hard-working ordinary Kiwis. But if they are paid $11 an hour like the cleaners who will come into this building long after those Tories have gone home tonight they are not hard-working people. They are not people who deserve the protection of this Parliament and this place. That is the disgrace of the speech that we heard tonight. 
Tonight we are talking about cleaners food catering workers laundry workers aged-care workers and residential-care workers. These are the kinds of people who need laws like this from this Parliament. These are the kinds of people whose wages are higher now under a Labour Government than they were when the National Party ran this place. When Labour became Government $7 an hour was the minimum wage. Today it is $10.25. Working with the Greens New Zealand First and the Maori Party we will get it to 12 bucks by the end of this Parliament. That means those vulnerable workers whom we protect tonight will get $200 a week more before tax in their pay packet because of the kind of legislation we pass. 
National Party members can line up with their exclusive friends and their sects and cults and all that sort of thing for as long as they like. We in the New Zealand Labour Party and parties that support this Government and support ordinary people will proudly vote for this bill tonight. I commend it to the House.