Parmar Parmjeet; Tisch LindsayDr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): Thank you for the opportunity to speak to the Minimum Wage (Contractor Remuneration) Amendment Bill in the Committee of the whole House. The issue is that this bill is not going to deliver what it intends to—it is the way it is proposed. The way this bill is proposed is confusing not at just one level that can be sorted but it is confusing at all levels. This bill confuses employee and contractor status and expects businesses out there to treat both employees and contractors the same way because this bill proposes to apply the minimum wage to contractors in the same way it applies to employees. This bill misses that employees get holiday pay on top of their hourly wage and for the ACC argument that we heard from the member who spoke before the ACC earners levy is deducted from their gross earning through PAYE. For contractors they will not be receiving any holiday pay which employees get on top of their minimum hourly rate and they will also be required to pay the ACC earners levy and work levy. So there is a big difference in employee and contractor status and contractors earning just the minimum wage is not going to help them earn more. We have heard a lot from various people even after the select committee process. People are urging that this bill should not proceed especially the business sector—those people who represent businesses—because they see that this bill is based on some wrong assumptions. Because this bill is based on some wrong assumptions it is confusing and it is also unworkable. During the select committee process the member in charge of this bill was unable to provide us with any concrete evidence. We heard some anecdotal stories but there was no concrete evidence about how widespread this problem is. We do acknowledge that there is a problem but we need to know how big that problem is. Because we do not know how big that problem is I do not see that it is necessary to amend the current legislation.We have heard from businesses saying that it is going to harm contractors. This bill is going to harm contractors and not just that it will create a lot of uncertainty in the business sector. The example that the member used from day one—I would like to use that same example of delivering flyers. If a person is delivering flyers for more than one client who will be responsible for the enforcement of this legislation? Who will decide who should be the client who will be responsible for paying the minimum wage to the contractor? This bill assumes that a contractor works for only one client at a time which is not true—that is what I mean by wrong assumptions. There are a lot of wrong assumptions in this. To the member—in his contribution he used the example of Masala restaurant. I believe that those people were employees not contractors so that is again a very very confusing example given by the member. We do acknowledge that the problem is there but this bill is not going to address the problem. We need to know how widespread this problem is and we also need to look at the practical aspect of how we deliver this bill on the ground. That is really important. This bill is confusing it is not workable and I would like to ask the member in charge of this bill David Parker to take the next call and tell us why he assumes that contractors should be working for just one client at one time. I also want to know from the member how this confusing legislation is going to help contractors. What happens to the holiday pay and what happens to the ACC earners levy and work levy? I want to know that and I also want to know from the member whether he has done any evaluation on the value of—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break. This debate is interrupted and I shall resume the Chair at 7.30.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.Dr PARMJEET PARMAR: Just to summarise before the dinner break I was saying that this bill is very confusing. It is because of the way it is proposed because it mixes the employee and contractor statuses. And I was also saying that this bill is not workable and is based on some wrong assumptions. Before the dinner break I was asking some questions of the member in charge of this bill. I was asking why the member assumed that a contractor should be working only for one client at a time. In a situation where a contractor is working for multiple clients who will decide the client that will be responsible for the minimum wage for that contractor? It is unfair to put that responsibility on clients and the contractor and I would like to ask the member in charge of this bill to answer this question. I would also like to ask the member how this confusing legislation is going to help contractors especially regarding their holiday pay and ACC levies because with holiday pay and ACC levies it is not going to deliver what the member actually intends to deliver through this legislation. Thirdly I would also like to ask whether the member had an opportunity to do an evaluation on the work that contractors do in various industry sectors. We know that contractors work in various industry sectors like manufacturing forestry construction cleaning and so many other industries. I would like to know from the member whether he had the opportunity to do an evaluation on the value of work that contractors do and their earnings. The reality is that the current legislation is enough to address the issue that this bill intends to address. This bill will actually intervene in a way that will take away the choice that is available to people in the market place. It will take away the flexibility that is available in the market place. It will also reduce the earning power of contractors because contractors want to work efficiently to be able to earn more. They want to have the flexibility available to them to be able to work in their own time. I know several families where just to balance their family and work life a member works as an employee but the other member takes up some contracting jobs because it gives them the flexibility to balance their family and work life. That is the kind of flexibility that people really like when they become contractors. We need to see that we are moving forward with the workforce not going backward. We are not restricting our workforce but we are making it modern and we are making it flexible and practical too. If this legislation goes through the focus will be on time. The focus will be on the number of hours and on contracts. The whole focus will come on just one factor and that is the time factor. There will be no focus on productivity. There will be no focus on flexibility. There will be no focus on choice which is available to people currently. This legislation also does not take into consideration any cost overruns because it is possible that people are unable to estimate the number of hours they will take to finish a contract so they will underestimate the number of hours they will take to finish that project and there will be issues of cost overruns. There will be a possibility of a number of people coming and claiming those kinds of costs complicating the whole situation. As I said before this legislation will actually harm contractors and will create uncertainty in the sector and we do not want to see that. This legislation will also require self-employed people to pay themselves the minimum hourly rate. Examples that Sue Moroney gave before the dinner break of those self-employed people—truck drivers courier drivers. They will be required to pay the minimum hourly wage to themselves under this legislation. That will limit their ability to earn more because that means we are adding more compliance costs on to them. There will more administration costs for some of these people because I know these people like to work on their business in a way that they are quite involved in the way that they deliver their contracts. They will have to employ another person to deliver those kinds of administrative jobs. That means they will have to pay another person to do that kind of record-keeping and then their overall earning will be definitely affected. As this bill has progressed through the House we have seen that a number of businesses and a number of people have realised that there are a number of flaws in the way this bill is proposed and that it is not going to deliver what the intention is. We all know that we should not underestimate what the business sector is saying and what contractors are saying. They are quite capable. They know what they are doing out there so it is not a good idea to mix the employee and contractor statuses. We want to see that we have fair employment legislation but on the other hand we also want to have flexibility in our workforce while enforcing that fair employment legislation. We are doing that.