Mitchell Clayton; Borrows ChesterCLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First): I was sitting there listening to this absolute rubbish from across the House. It was like a pit bull chewing a wasp. I just could not believe the absolute nonsense coming out of Parmjeet Parmar's mouth. The reality is that this is the winter of that party's discontent. Its members are so disconnected from reality when they think that it is all about business. They forget the point: it is about people. People make business. People operate business. People are the very ones who create economic growth and development for this country. The whole speech was all about how this is not good for business and we cannot afford it. I want to start my contribution for New Zealand First by supporting strongly this bill that has been put forward by David Parker the Minimum Wage (Contractor Remuneration) Amendment Bill and talk for a moment about that very thing the minimum wage. The reality is that some employers out there would pay their workers less but they cannot because it is illegal. Think about that for a minute. There are employers out there who would pay less than the minimum wage if they could. So let us focus for a moment on the $15.25 that we heard Andrew Bayly talk so feverishly about—that this party the National Party came into office in 2008 and took the minimum wage from $12 per hour up to $15.25. Annualise that. We are talking about $31000 a year working full-time on the minimum wage at the current rate. Take your tax off that and you are taking home around $480. Your rent is around $300 to $350. How can you expect somebody to live on the minimum wage? This Government over there is justifying paying people less because they are contractors. It talks about choice. We are not talking about choice. People are forced into taking these jobs because they have got no options open to them. You think $15.25 is acceptable. You can pay people less because they have got the choice to do so. It is an absolute disgrace. What about talking about a wage that is sustainable? What about going back to the days when you could do a hard full day's work and get a genuine pay that you could actually sustain and live on and get by on and move forward. The National members are quibbling—quibbling—saying: $15.25 we're not going to justify. We're not going to support our workforce to make sure they get that very thing."Let us talk about the choice. We are talking about in many cases contractors who are forced to take jobs because there are no other jobs available to them. Take this job but it is a contractor's job. In Australia they have gone through some massive reforms to tighten up on exactly this thing because people—not all people and not all businesses—are out there exploiting our hard-working people. They have legislation in Australia that says if you are employed from a single source for 80 percent of your income then you are not a contractor. What about implementing that? This is a way of getting around the law. At the end of the day when you are comparing employees and contractors employees get a raft of protections. They get a raft of benefits. They get 4 weeks' paid annual leave per year. They get sick leave. They get bereavement leave. They even get KiwiSaver contributions paid to them by their employer. When you are a contractor you are responsible for that entirely yourself. When they are not paying you a fair day's pay for a fair day's work then you are going backwards fast. The reality is that this bill is a very sensible bill. We did have a number of people and submitters coming through and the majority of those people were very responsible employers contractees and businesses. We also heard equally from a number of people who fully support this bill looking after the rights of employees and contractors. The reality is that we have to make sure that we have got a balance that people working in a contract situation or in fact as an employee have a balance with their employer or their contractee to make sure that they are not exploited. I commend the people who came and spoke to us at our Transport and Industrial Relations Committee because there were genuine businesses out there that were absolutely not having any impact on making any overtones towards paying people less than the minimum wage. We commend them for that. This bill goes no way to disenfranchise good operators—businesses that are actually working within the confines of the law with morals and working inside a legal framework to ensure their workers are looked after. Some of those contractors have been working as contractors for years. Why would they not? "I enjoy being a contractor working for this organisation. They look after us and I'm certainly getting paid more than the minimum wage." This is commendable. But we are talking about the vulnerable workers. We are talking about the shysters the mongers who are actually out there doing a disservice to the goodwill of employers and businesses in this country—the ones who will take absolute advantage if they can. As I said when I opened they would pay you less but they cannot because it is illegal. The minimum wage is an absolute doddery figure. It needs to be brought back into line. On average 40c an hour over the last 8 years of your Government—that is what you are putting your hand on your heart about? You cannot live on that sort of money. Nobody here could. You go and stay a night in your car and you think "well look I'm supporting the homeless" but I would like to see you live off $480 a week. You will not be able to do that. Nobody can. You cannot raise a family on that you cannot live and you cannot put food on the table.Chris Bishop: Of course you can't. That's why you get Working for Families.CLAYTON MITCHELL: The reality is that this Government is out of touch. Chris you are absolutely out of touch when it comes to knowing how to run a business or being involved in running a business. You live in a bubble. You have never been outside this bubble. You have never employed anybody and I bet you have never been on the minimum wage and actually lived off the minimum wage.Chris Bishop: I have actually.CLAYTON MITCHELL: You were probably living on the minimum wage when you were living with your mum and dad. Try living under the minimum wage. The reality is that we need to be supporting this bill. I hope that we have the sensibility to make sure that we look after those vulnerable workers who are forced into this situation. People engaged as contractors have few of the protections of employees and this bill is about tightening up on that. Absolutely 100 percent we need to make sure that they are playing on a level playing field. We have got a situation with a number of these points. In my first speech I said we had some reservations with regard to pamphlet deliveries. One of the offshoots from this is the fact that if you have got an aged population who are out there delivering pamphlets and they do it as a bit of a sideline—they do it as much to be social in their neighbourhood to go and deliver pamphlets around the streets. They might take 3 or 4 days to walk around the streets—Mrs McClintock as she goes and talks to the Bradley family down the road. They stop and have a chat and a cup of tea. This bill actually caters for that. They are not going to be disenfranchised because they can employ a 16- or 18-year-old on a pushbike who can whizz around the entire place in 2 hours flat. They want to take their time to do it. New section 11AC inserted by clause 13 exactly covers it off by saying regarding recovery of minimum remuneration: "Specified person may not recover minimum remuneration for time that exceeds agreed reasonable time to provide service". So a negotiation can come in and it is about fair and reasonable time. If the speakers on the other side think that it is too hard to hold on to records for 6 years because that is more of a burden and a cost and an issue for those businesses the Inland Revenue Department expects us to hold on to all of our information for 7 years. So how can they justify keeping hold of your records? You have to keep hold of your records anyway. There is no downside to this bill. It is a positive bill looking after the best interests of positive businesses so that they can be put on the same level playing field with each other. You have got a positive contractor working within the confines and the rules and regulations of this country and you have got some of those businesses that do not and under this legislation those businesses that do not will come up. It will actually make for fair trading across all sectors making sure that we are looking after the most vulnerable people in our community. I hope that today it gets support. I look forward to hearing more absolute rhetoric rubbish from that Government. Chris Bishop is like a pit bull chewing a wasp now waiting to jump up and justify that "I was on the minimum wage and I wasn't living with my mum and dad." Well I have to say that I betcha you have not employed people and I bet you have never seen the hard side of what poverty looks and smells and tastes like. I would like to see you raise a family on $600 week $31000 a year. Thank you.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Chris Bishop. How are you getting on with that wasp?"