Barker Rick: General Debate 
Barker Rick: General Debate 
[Volume:675;Page:14405] 
Hon RICK BARKER (Minister of Internal Affairs) 
: 
 There are clear lines of division down this House and none can be clearer than the division between the National Party and the Labour Party on wages incomes and protecting workers’ jobs. Every so often we get a flash of honesty from the National Party leader John Key. Recently he was in Auckland and said to a business group “You can ignore quite often what I say publicly. Trust me when I become Prime Minister I will be a traditional National Party Prime Minister.” Putting aside for example his dreams and ambitions it does show something of the man himself and what he says. It shows an underlying amount of duplicity. 
We can look at another very interesting and revealing quote from the man on 17 December: “We would love to see wages drop.” This demonstrates the National Party’s attitude to wages and incomes as being a cost to business. It is not a matter of how much people need to sustain themselves or look after themselves and their families to pay for bread to put meat in the fridge and to look after those things; it is a cost to business. It is also reflective of the National Party’s view about trickle-down and supply-side economics. 
National Party members have traditionally argued that if we give money to the wealthy and look after them then they will invest the money and from the investments jobs will flow and so on. That is the trickle-down theory which was characterised by the great economist J K Galbraith as something akin to giving the horse the finest bundle of hay and when the horse is finished with it the birds can feed. That is the National Party’s attitude towards workers. Labour has a different view. We believe that if we look after ordinary working people then they will strengthen their families and do much better. 
Again another very clear line between National and Labour is that during the 1990s the National Party held down the minimum wage. As Ruth Dyson said it increased by 89c over 9 or 10 years. It went up something like 10c a year. During that period with the Employment Contracts Act and all the rest that was done wages in New Zealand fell dramatically behind wages in Australia. A 50 percent gap opened up. In that time in 1990 the National Party went around New Zealand assuring New Zealanders that it would protect their wages. The National Party even wrote letters telling people it would look after their penalty rates. What happened? Their letterboxes were stuffed with these letters and penalty rates went wages were slashed conditions were slashed and New Zealand went downwards in a terrible spiral. The wage gap between New Zealand and Australia rose. 
That is what the National Party did when it promised to look after workers and their wages. Now we have a National Party leader saying “We would love to see wages drop.” I have to say that workers in New Zealand should be afraid—very very afraid. What will be the first line of attack? The Employment Relations Act will go. The National Party will bring back the Employment Contracts Act on steroids. If this happens the National Party will do what it did in the past. It will hold the minimum wage and the regular increases in the minimum wage under Labour will go. Workers can look forward to no more increases in holidays. Remember that the Labour Party increased annual leave from 3 weeks to 4 weeks. The National Party has promised to put the fourth week of annual leave up to be negotiable. We know what that means; it will be negotiated away and workers will be back to 3 weeks’ annual leave. 
Under National the apprenticeship system was scrapped. Our young people had no hope or opportunity of learning skills and getting a career. Labour brought the apprenticeship system back and we got young people gaining skills and a career for themselves. Labour achieved paid parental leave. National voted against it all the way. Labour brought in KiwiSaver to help people save for their superannuation or homeownership. National voted against it all the way. 
As we can see there is a clear line of difference between the National Party and the Labour Party. The Labour Party understands very clearly by way of making interventions in the market supporting contract negotiations and supporting people who work for a living. Labour is helping New Zealand families and we have reinforced that with family support. 
Chris Auchinvole 
: They’re going to Australia. 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: The member talks about people going to Australia. I have suddenly developed a theory about this. Maybe a number of people are going to Australia because they realise that the National Party just might get in—but I doubt it—and that if National said in 1990 that it would look after wages and conditions and it is now promising to cut their pay it will be a tough life. Workers need to believe that and believe it very clearly. It is very scary for New Zealanders to be confronted by the leader of the National Party saying “We would love to see wages drop.” That is what he said and I believe him.