Woodhouse MichaelHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you Madam Chair. It's my great pleasure to take what's my first set of questions for the Minister in this bill not being able to on previous days. My concern relates to clause 120 Minimum wage exemption permits". This has been something of a talking point for many many years going back to when Ruth Dyson attempted to I guess be rid of minimum wage exemptions much to the chagrin of those who benefited from them back in the Clark Government years.For those who aren't familiar with minimum wage exemptions these are permits issued by the labour inspectorate for people with disabilities often intellectual—and often through organisations that are euphemistically known as sheltered workshops—who nevertheless provide a valuable service to their clients and to those members of the disabled community but nevertheless would not be productive enough to earn the adult minimum wage.The way I read clause 120 is that the minimum wage permit process will continue but if the employee already has a permit and the organisation is then covered by a fair pay agreement that sets out the minimum base rate that's equal to or greater than the minimum wage—which is kind of obvious because it would have to by law—then that permit continues unless the minimum wage exemption is set at the percentage of the adult minimum wage.Now clause 120(3)(a) says that "if [a] permit is expressed as a percentage of the minimum adult wage … set [out in] section 4 of the Minimum Wage Act … the rate of wages must be calculated by applying that percentage to the minimum base wage rate set [out] in [a] fair pay agreement" ergo despite the fact that there isn't a change in the productivity of the person with a disability who has a minimum wage exemption the cost to the employer will go up potentially quite materially depending on what the fair pay agreement comes up with. Now that could be a problem for the employee. In fact the employee may not benefit from that because almost always those who are the subject of a minimum wage exemption are eligible for other income supports that are abated if the individual's earning potential goes up.So my questions around this are: firstly can the Minister advise the committee what proportion of those I think about 800 or 900 people who are the subject of a minimum wage exemption have that exemption expressed as a percentage? So how material is clause 120(3)(a)? I understood that it was more of a dollar amount in which case clause 120(3)(b) would apply and the rate just goes until the permit expires. If there are a large number of people who do have that permit expressed as a percentage then am I correct in assuming that simply by way of settling the fair pay agreement their income the mandatory amount that they should be paid should go up despite the fact that a labour inspector has determined that their level of ability to contribute their productivity has not changed?Thirdly will the Minister commit—and this is the money shot really—to ensuring that the changes in this legislation will not negatively affect those people who are the subject of a minimum wage exemption? If he has visited any of the organisations around the country that use these—and in my patch it's Cargill Enterprises in South Dunedin who do a fantastic job not only for their clients the people who buy their services and that's Air New Zealand and a local gas fireplace company that has wooden pellets assembled for their freight movements—they will not be negatively affected but it's the staff themselves those people with disabilities who absolutely love coming to work every day. I have a family member who works there and the money is important. He's paid fairly; he's very productive despite his intellectual disability. It would be a tragedy if as a consequence of these changes those roles were put at risk. So we need a commitment that that's certainly not his intention to dispense with the minimum wage exemption process but also his confidence that that won't happen."