Clark David: Minimum Wage Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Clark David: Minimum Wage Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 19 September 2012. Volume:684;Page:5412. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North) 
: 
 The Minimum Wage Amendment Bill is a chance to make a much-needed step towards addressing child poverty in New Zealand. The Children’s Commissioner’s report on child poverty makes for some distressing reading. Far too many of our children are growing up in households that cannot make ends meet let alone give them the best start in life. 
I want to just comment briefly on some of the hogwash that has been spoken from the other side of the House through this debate. There has been a lot of talk about employment effects of raising the minimum wage by this small amount. That is absolute rubbish—absolute rubbish. Research from the Department of Labour the Government’s own officials has suggested that the minimum wage rises that this Government has put in have had no measurable effect on unemployment. That is very similar to the evidence that comes through from Australia and from the United Kingdom. It is absolutely true that there is very little effect on employment if any at all. Treasury says that on the balance of probability this will not have any effect on unemployment. As we know during the 1990s when National put up the minimum wage— 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
Dr DAVID CLARK 
: When I was so rudely interrupted by the dinner break I was just making the very point that when National put up the minimum wage just 70c in the 9 years that it was in power in the 1990s unemployment hovered up between 6 percent and 11 percent. It never saw those levels again under the Labour Government when the Labour Government put up the minimum wage by a whole $5 over its 9 years. There was more that needed to be done but you cannot doubt that the minimum wage went up and what happened? Unemployment went down down to the lowest levels in the Western World so those who would argue that raising the minimum wage would cause unemployment know themselves deep down that they are wrong. They know they are wrong. 
What we also know is that even the mean-spirited people opposite those people who would put a view like the one that Michael Woodhouse put who have this mean view of human nature that says that people do not want to get out and work and you have to pay them a whole lot of money to get them out and work should understand that increasing the minimum wage—even those who put that mean-spirited view—would be a good incentive to get people in work. But the reason people want work and want to get out there and work is that they care about their families. The jobs are not there and there are economic consequences to underpaying those people. There is the underachievement of those young people who do not have full stomachs when they go to school. They do not reach their potential. They do not become the future taxpaying citizens whom we would wish them to become because they have not reached their potential. They get preventable illnesses through living in cold damp and overcrowded conditions from parents who do not have enough money to look after them as they would want to. Then there are the costs of antisocial behaviour. 
We know very well that the economic case for opposing the minimum wage rise does not stack up. The money that is paid in additional wages goes to stimulate the economy. It also is true that small and medium enterprises largely already pay above the minimum wage—certainly at a higher rate than other enterprises—and it actually levels the playing field when their competitors are forced to raise the minimum wage also. So that party opposite I would say is the enemy of small business. That party opposite hates small business. It hates the fact that small business already pays decent wages and is undercut by other operations that are on the lowest common denominator. We need to pay a decent wage. We need to pay people the money that they need to live to live good lives to reach their potential and to contribute towards our economy. This Government has the worst economic record in 50 years. There are nearly 50000 more people in unemployment and we know that 50000 people a year are leaving this country permanently to go to Australia. The reason they are going to Australia is that wages are higher there. Wages are higher there. Nearly NZ$20 is the very lowest wage that gets paid there. There is a huge gap between New Zealand and Australia in wages and if we continue to underpay underpay and underpay we will see our children and grandchildren disappearing off to Australia where they can get paid better. 
This bill is a chance to take a much-needed step towards addressing child poverty in New Zealand. It is simple. It puts $60 a week more in the wage packet of a 40-hour-a-week worker so that they can put the necessities—the milk and cereal—out for the kids. It is not a cure-all for child poverty but it is a very good start. I want to say in closing that the Prime Minister has admitted that he could not live on the minimum wage. Why does he think anyone else can? It is disgraceful and shameful for the Government to oppose this bill.