Bond RiaRIA BOND (NZ First): I am pleased to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak to the second reading of the Care and Support Worker (Pay Equity) Settlement Bill. In the spirit of trying to ensure that this bill goes through in the time that it needs to go through I will be taking a short call. Before I do get into the nitty-gritty of my allocated time I want to—as other members previously have said—commend the advisers who worked with us. We had a limited time frame in order to get this bill from its first reading to amendments being made and then to its second reading tonight and in the early hours with the go away and come back to us" procedure that the Health Committee went through it was absolutely a pleasure to work with advisers who are really on to it.It was also quite good—and I want to also commend the chair who allowed open discussion across parties in the select committee—to talk about the concerns that every one of us had regarding certain clauses in this bill. So I want to say a thankyou to our advisers. Thank you to those members on the committee who did actually give up a lot of their time to come along and ensure that this bill was fit for purpose and that we were doing the right thing as members of this House.What was quite imperative I guess when we took the first reading of this bill was that my colleague Tracey Martin disclosed that New Zealand First could support this bill only through to the select committee process and that we could not actually guarantee that our support would go right through the passage of this bill through the House. Primarily that was because we needed to hear from submitters from the unions from Kristine Bartlett from the providers and from the people inside the sector who had negotiated this settlement that they did not themselves—in terms of Kristine Bartlett and the women who are inside the sector—feel that they had to negotiate away their rights for justice. It was imperative for me as a member to sit there and listen to those submitters explain to me why it was so crucial that this settlement bill go through the House.I know that it has taken 20 months of negotiation from 5 years ago when Kristine Bartlett brought this claim forward with the court proceedings which had I think from memory around 6000 claims. I would like to say that although it has been hard work and victories have been fought for and victories have been removed I do want to say thank you to E tū for supporting the movement to ensure that this settlement has come to the stage of where it has come to.I want to add a little bit of a personal note here. My mother worked within this sector. As a little girl I would sit there and I would read the newspaper to the elderly who could no longer see. My mother worked so heartily in this sector and always put her patients before her family so I know first-hand what it is like—the dedication that these women show to ensuring that their patients are actually turned over at the right time bathed looked after and fed the right food. From memory I know exactly the hardship being recognised in terms of equality and wages that these workers have had to go through to get here today.We heard from I think approximately 40 submitters. We heard from employers who raised issues with us pertaining to certain clauses that they felt would actually in the long-term put them out of business. It was quite crucial that through that stage of listening to each sector through that committee process members were actually understanding the issues that this sector has faced currently faces and will face in this 5-year phase-in of this settlement process. So I think it was actually quite crucial that we did at times deliberate quite a bit and come back again to find out and if we had questions we went back to our advisers and sought answers.One of the things that did come about throughout this process was that some of the employers unfortunately walked away from this process. What I gathered from that was that this caused an anomaly in the process because it then meant that the settlement process payouts could not actually go anywhere—they could not go anywhere. I found that quite astonishing. One side of me understood their stance. On the other side of me I felt quite sad for the workers—the 55000 workers—whom this potentially put at risk through this side of the settlement bill.I also found that in order for us to move forward and for the submitters to move forward we actually had to acknowledge their concerns that they legitimately brought forward. Other members have touched on this as well tonight but I do feel that I have a little bit to add in this area. The submitters—particularly the employers—spoke quite extensively on the funding provisions within this bill. Particularly they were concerned about clause 18(3) and (4) of the bill which provides that the funder's determination is final and that the clause relating to setting funding levels towards offsetting the costs of the agreement relates only to funding agreements entered into before the commencement of the Act. So what we were further advised on was that this funding provision in the bill allows for extra funding to be dispersed in advance of contracts being renegotiated. That is why it was only relevant for these agreements in place before the legislation comes into force so it was not intended at all to remove an employer's ability to negotiate.We also received general concerns from employers about the amount of funding associated with this settlement and previous members have touched on that quite significantly. What that was relative to was the unfortunate misunderstanding between the Crown negotiators and the employers around that table and we heard that some of our large providers and our small ones actually opened their books up. They opened their business books up so that advisers and negotiators could see what sort of average model they could use to determine what sort of percentage of funding would be relevant and appropriate to ensuring that businesses did not go into insolvency and shut their establishments up.The figure that I guess has caused contention has been the 26 percent ongoing costs and that was what the employer submitters were quite vocal about. From a lot of to-ing and fro-ing and talking and for us to get our heads around this it came down to the fact that the actual model that these costs were calculated on came down to 20.9 percent and that was based on the statutory requirements for annual leave statutory holidays ACC levies and KiwiSaver contributions.I know that I did say I was going to be quick so I want to say in closing that there was a statement in the first reading that my colleague Tracey Martin referred to and that was why we endeavoured to go through this process. It was the fact that we wanted to make sure—we absolutely without doubt wanted to make sure—that this settlement bill was anything but a State-sanctioned emotional blackmail settlement bill. It does pull on your heartstrings a little bit that—to the women in this settlement—you have had to give so much away to get something but it is better than what you have had to date. So on that basis New Zealand First does support this bill."