McAnulty KieranHon KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): I didn't actually catch that. Did you call me? Thank you very much. How good. It's actually quite hard! You'd think it'd be easy—I'm the closest to you—and I cannot hear. I apologise. Thank you very much Madam Chair.I'm very pleased to have the opportunity the first one of the evening. I have been trying for some time so I'm very pleased. Because of course now we are in Part 2 the substantive part of this bill—the bill that talks about repealing this the Fair Pay Agreements Act 2022. I like all of my colleagues many of whom are yet to take a call are keen to talk about this bill—this Act sorry—that the bill seeks to repeal. As we will see from the large number of amendments many of which are yet to be touched on there is a lot of interest in this.But before I get on to the two points that I wanted to make I wish to touch on something that the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety raised in her response to the contribution of the Rt Hon Adrian Rurawhe. The Minister mentioned that instead of this bill—there is no other piece of legislation to look to increase wages of course but the Minister did say that instead of fair pay agreements the way in which this Government intends to increase wages is through increased productivity reduced regulation and reducing the cost of living. But of course reducing the cost of living isn't necessarily linked to wages. One way in which to address the cost of living is to increase wages which the fair pay agreements would have undoubtedly done.Now if we talk about increasing productivity this has been the rationale of those on the right for as long as anyone in this House can remember—for as long as anyone in this House can remember: if only we can increase productivity then workers would be better off. The problem with that of course is that productivity is linked to wages and there is a reason why Australia and other countries that follow what was in place in the Fair Pay Agreements Act—the Act that this bill in Part 2 seeks to repeal—have higher productivity: the two go hand in hand. Since 1991 New Zealand's productivity has not kept up with other countries that have maintained what is in the Fair Pay Agreements Act.So the committee may understand why we on this side are a little bit sceptical of the claim that instead of this Act which will be repealed by this bill which will and has been proven to improve conditions and increase wages and get a fair standard across the board—people shake their heads but they're not looking at evidence; they're only looking at their own view that they don't want to pay higher wages. It is a fact. Instead of this we go on some theoretical concept of increasing productivity without any concept at all for the committee's consideration tonight as to how they want to do that.Perhaps that of course is linked to reducing regulation. Of course the issue with reducing regulation in so many examples in the past is that it's often regulations that relate to health and safety at work that relate to conditions at work and many of them relate to wages—such as regulations around overtime for example and regulations around additional pay conditions such as getting additional pay for working on weekends or working at nights or shift allowances or meal allowances and all those sorts of things. So when we talk about something that has proven—if left alone if left to the market solely—it has not benefited workers and reducing regulations which in so many instances protect workers I'm failed to be convinced by the Minister's response that this is an adequate alternative to what is being repealed by this bill.If we start right from the start in the purpose it says the purpose of this Act—in reference to Fair Pay Agreements Act 2022—is to enable employment terms to be improved for employees". It's extraordinary that there are people in this House that would oppose that. I put it that way because one might think that if there was disagreement this was the best way in which to achieve it. Why on earth—and this is my question to the Minister—why on earth hasn't it been spelt out on something tangible that would improve wages for workers in New Zealand? Why wasn't that put forward: a plan something tangible there in place so that we could debate an alternative? Instead we have a theory and a loose promise."