O'Connor Simon: Minimum Wage (Starting-out Wage) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
O'Connor Simon: Minimum Wage (Starting-out Wage) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 19 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8640. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tamaki) 
: 
 We have had great theatrical speeches from the other side on the Minimum Wage (Starting-out Wage) Amendment Bill but I think I want to draw some of this to a conclusion at least in my own thinking. What we are hearing here is fundamentalism fundamentalism at its best. It is fundamentalism that takes one point and overemphasises it at the point and against everything else. So let us give this a little bit of context and let us give this a little bit of consistency shall we? 
The first is context. We have heard a lot of things about what this Government is not doing and so forth and somehow that this young person’s wage is a terrible affront because nothing else is happening. There is an enormous amount that this Government is doing around jobs supporting the economy and so forth. Of course we are talking about 16 to 19-year-olds and a lot of them are in education. We can just look at the continuing results that are coming out of the education sector. I have been visiting schools recently and those young people studying there. Of course we have been rebalancing things around student loans and allowances. We are increasing funding into people doing engineering and science. This is a Government committed on a broad front. 
The Opposition will sit here and wax boring if I might say—not lyrical wax boring—on a whole lot of elements here that it thinks “Oh it is terrible.” It sits in a context. The Opposition says that the Government is not doing anything for jobs. Well let us talk about  
The Hobbit 
 let us talk about Skycity let us talk about Callaghan Innovation and let us talk about mining. Let us remind ourselves that the Opposition there said no to all of that. Context is incredibly important. The Opposition is a policy platform of “no” sayers. It is a naysayer to all of those activities—the mining Skycity Callaghan Innovation the funding for education and science—and it says no to this opportunity for young people for a minimum wage. 
I want to turn as well to the question of consistency because actually there has been a great lack of consistency from the Opposition. They are yelling out: “Oh my Lord this is a matter of principle.” We heard it from the Greens. We have heard it from Labour. It is a matter of principle. But of course the Labour Party does have its own youth wage as well. Employers said it was unworkable. It did not work very well the same rate as the youth minimum wage. We have heard it from the Opposition “Oh that is fine that is fine. This is different.” It is not actually principled. So to those listening in and those in the Chamber to the Opposition as it attempted a principled response—but it is not principled itself—one only needs to look at effectively the youth wage that the Opposition held. 
Also we have been talking about the living wage that somewhat arbitrary figure. Then you look at Supplementary Order Paper 193 here where $15 is being touted which of course is not the living wage. So we have got two levels of arbitrariness there. Then if you really want to push the inconsistency $15 is actually 80 percent of the living wage. So once again the Labour Party is getting all its numbers muddled up—all very inconsistent. It is a bit like a bank account that you might have overseas and you forget it is actually there. Why be consistent? Why be consistent? 
For me really I come back to where I started—great theatricalness and great fundamentalism: “We just want to talk about the minimum wage and ignore all the good things that this Government is doing.” Context is incredibly important. And the final aspect here is that employers are not ogres OK? How many people in the Opposition have actually run businesses? Businesses want to employ people. They are encouraging to employ people. They are not out there to screw every young person down on wages. These are Kiwis just like all of us. They are Kiwis like ourselves wanting to give young people opportunities. If this House is serious about looking after young people providing opportunities—that dignity of work Ms Fenton which  
Rerum 
Novarum 
spoke about; the dignity of work—we will do all within our powers to help young people into work. 
I want to pick up finally on Mr Sabin’s point as someone who holds an electorate as well. It has been interesting that those who do not have been pontificating to us. When the young people come into our offices or we are talking in the schools they want opportunities. If this is going to help them then why not 6 months at 80 percent? But I come back finally: theatricalness from the Opposition a lack of principle certainly no desire for context and no consistency in its thinking. Let us move on.