Hughes Darren: Disabled Persons Employment Promotion (Repeal and Related Matters) Bill — In Committee 
Hughes Darren: Disabled Persons Employment Promotion (Repeal and Related Matters) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:638;Page:8148] 
DARREN HUGHES (Labour—Otaki) 
: 
 We have just had a member of Parliament from the National Party get up and tell us that if we do not want someone to be paid $4 an hour in New Zealand in 2007 that means we have caved in. That is an extraordinary thing to say. He said that if we do not want to pay any more than $4 an hour for someone with a disability to work for us we have caved in to the union movement. He says that it is dogmatic that it is Labour Party ideology gone mad. That is the approach we are hearing tonight from the National Party. I just ask Nathan Guy who claims to have had somebody come to see him about it how many have come. 
Nathan Guy 
: Several. 
DARREN HUGHES 
: How many is that—seven eight? I will tell the member how many people have been to see me about it—two. I have had two people; two parents have been to see me about it. I ask the member how many have seen him. Oh the member will not answer the question; the member who got up and said he was very concerned about the community he lives in and all that sort of thing will not tell us how many people actually have been to see him. I suspect that it has been one; I think it has been one. 
You see what has happened is that the member is saying we are caving in by getting rid of the Minimum Wage Act 1983 exemption in the principal Act for people with disabilities. But I am just saying as the member of Parliament for that area for that constituency that I do not want people in my constituency working for four bucks an hour simply because they have a disability. I do draw a line in the sand at that and say that it is not good enough for somebody to be paid $4 an hour. We can say well they are a bit slower and their productivity is not very good. But there are people who turn up for work after a hard night out whose productivity is not very good—some of them are members of Parliament—yet we still pay them exactly the same rate of money. We do not draw a line in the sand there. 
This part of the bill gets rid of those Minimum Wage Act provisions and makes it very clear that people have to be paid $11.25—as the minimum wage will shortly become in New Zealand. Of course when Labour became the Government in this country the minimum wage was $7 an hour; today it is $11.25. Next year working with United Future and New Zealand First we hope to get that to $12 an hour. If we can do that it will mean that workers on the minimum wage in New Zealand will be on average 200 bucks a week better off because of the changes made to the minimum wage. [ 
Interruption 
] Does Sandra Goudie think that it is a good idea or bad idea that people will be 200 bucks a week better off if they are full-time workers after the Minimum Wage Act changes that Labour has made? 
Sandra Goudie 
: They won’t have a job. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: What if they don’t have a job at all? 
DARREN HUGHES 
: Well there is a lot of noise from Sandra Goudie and a lot of noise from Maurice Williamson—the sort of dream team of the National Party. But they will not tell us whether they are actually in support now of the minimum wage changes that they have opposed every single year. We are now saying in relation to the small number of people with disabilities who are working below the standards in our country that we are going to bring them in and make them part of the tent. I support that; I think that it is absolutely fantastic that we are doing that. 
Another point I make is in reference to residents of the Kimberley Centre. Those final few residents of the Kimberley Centre are not covered under this legislation for getting out and working in the community. We are talking about people who are already working out there in the community right now not people who have come out of a residential setting. We are making sure that these people will have the minimum rights and protections that our minimum wage legislation allows for in New Zealand. I think it is fantastic; I think it is a great thing for New Zealand. I think it is good that we are saying that people cannot work for $4 an hour any more. I am amazed that today in 2007 we have National list MPs getting up and saying that $4 an hour is a great pay rate if someone has a disability because that person might be a bit slower than some other workers. That is a very hard position to accept— 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: This member should be on $1 an hour. 
DARREN HUGHES 
: Maurice Williamson thinks that $1 an hour is a good rate for people to be paid. I think it is even worse. Of course the National Party’s problems when Don Brash was leader were all fixed by returning Maurice Williamson to the front bench. Well if Maurice Williamson is the answer to National’s problem it must be a pretty bad question when he is held up as the strategic genius and returned to National’s front bench. 
But all I want to say is that Part 3 is a very very good part. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: That was so vicious! 
DARREN HUGHES 
: What was more vicious I tell Mr Williamson was when the member was first put on the front bench by Mrs Shipley then sacked then put back to the third row then kicked out by Mr English then brought back then rehabilitated after a pinch when the good Dr Brash left. That was the cruel attack—it was not from me. What I said was absolutely kind compared with what the member’s own colleagues did to him. That left him with quite a big disability in terms of Part 3 of this bill—that is what happened when he became a disabled person for the purposes of the National Party caucus. 
But I want to say that the minimum wage ought to extend to every single worker in our country. There is no reason in this day and age for people not to get it simply for having a disability. 
Sandra Goudie 
: Get real! 
DARREN HUGHES 
: Sandra Goudie who is a kind of advertisement for the other side of the argument—I accept that—says we should be able to pay people less. She supports the Nathan Guy approach of $4 an hour if people have a disability. I will never support that. I will demand that people in my electorate are paid a decent rate of pay even if they have a disability because I do not discriminate against people. I believe in  
Pathways to Inclusion 
. I think that this is a great part of the bill and I support it. 
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 96 in the name of the Hon Ruth Dyson to Part 3 be agreed to.