Woods Megan: Minimum Wage (Starting-out Wage) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Woods Megan: Minimum Wage (Starting-out Wage) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 18 October 2012. Volume:684;Page:6017. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram) 
: 
 It is disappointing. We are in the middle of a crisis in this country. We need change and this bill the Minimum Wage (Starting-out Wage) Amendment Bill is as good as it gets from the members opposite. This is all they can do: cut prices on wages. All they have got in them are failed 20th century policies and no creative 21st century solutions for the very real problems we face as a nation. 
What we have heard from the members opposite today can be described only as astonishing. The last speaker Mr Auchinvole the member not for the West Coast told us that this needs to be seen as part of a package that National has put together to create jobs. Well you have failed. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Order! 
Dr MEGAN WOODS 
: You have failed—sorry Mr Deputy Speaker you certainly have not failed. National has failed in its quest to create jobs. Let me tell you about your record—let me tell National about its record in Government. More than 50000 more people are not in work than when you took office. Every year 50000 people leave this country since you took office— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Order! 
Dr MEGAN WOODS 
: —because you— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Order! 
Dr MEGAN WOODS 
: —because National fails to— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Order! You keep saying “you”. 
Dr MEGAN WOODS 
: —yes I know—because National has failed to offer them hope. This is something that the Government has to own up to. There are currently 84000 young people not in education employment or training. This is a failure by the members opposite. This is 17000 more than when National took office. This is not something that members opposite can stand here and tell us is part of a successful package to put young people to work because simply everything that has been tried to date has failed. There are 17000 more. In fact 50.3 percent of Pasifika women aged between 15 and 19 are currently unemployed. That is not something for any Government to be proud of; that is something that any Government should give pause to and reflect on what it is doing. 
Then we had Jami-Lee Ross who stood up and ranted that Andrew Little should take responsibility for the 9000 people who lost their job as a result of Labour getting rid of the youth minimum wage. This is simply wrong. The Department of Labour’s own reports show that this is simply wrong. A report released says that by 2010 there was absolutely no change in youth unemployment as a result of scrapping the youth wage. 
Let us actually deal in some facts and not in some ideology. But you know what? Even if this did work—even if it did work—this is a Government admitting failure that this is all there is for New Zealand: the low road a competitive advantage of low wages. Well Labour believes in something more for our country and for our people. We believe in jobs and we believe in high wages. We believe in creating a real future for people. We do not want to join the race to the bottom that the National Government seems to want to excel in. We were told we like people on benefits. Well actually what we like is when people can work and there is a Government that is committed to creating jobs for them and that is exactly what a Labour Government will do. It is not something we have seen this National Government in any way committed to. 
I want to refer to some previous statements made in this House about the youth minimum wage: “… we are not convinced it would reduce youth unemployment plus it would be a distraction from the really important work of improving productivity and growing the economy in order to create long-term jobs which will keep young people in New Zealand.” Was it a member of Labour? Was it a member of the Greens? No it was Paula Bennett in March 2010 in this House. Then we had Paula Bennett say when asked by Sir Roger Douglas whether she would be supporting his bill: “No we will not be supporting the bill as we are not convinced it would reduce youth unemployment plus it would be a distraction from the really important work of improving productivity and growing the economy in order to create long-term jobs which will keep young people in New Zealand.” 
Well have times not changed? Now National is not only supporting the race to the bottom and a youth rate but giving up on increasing productivity growing the economy and keeping people in New Zealand. Actually the only thing that National seems to want to export are our people. It does not want to do anything to help our industries that will actually create these high-value jobs and keep people here. This bill that is before us shows the lack of understanding that members opposite have of what a modern 21st century economy looks like. You speak to any high-value manufacturer in this country in an industry that will create high-paid jobs and keep our people here and 15 percent is around the usual level that wages make of its costs of production—15 percent. So tinkering around with wages is not the way to help these businesses stay in New Zealand and succeed. 
If you are content to have a low-wage economy and poorly paid industries then this is the road that this Government is going down. This is not something that Labour is content to be a part of. Labour has alternatives. We actually believe in giving our young people the skills needed to take part in this high-value economy. Do you know what? We would not let 80 percent of the $42 million budgeted to give young people the skills and training necessary to take part in the rebuild of Canterbury languish there unspent while we do nothing to help our young people. What Labour would do is invest in our young people and it would get them into work. It would not come up with micro schemes that do very little to address the fundamental problem that we have: 84000 young people who are not in education employment or training. The legislation that we have before us today is going to do nothing to address that. It is not something that is going to fundamentally shift this. 
Labour knows that in the 21st century we have to do things differently. We cannot have the disappointing failed policies of the past; we need to think creatively. That is why Labour is backing things such as instead of paying the dole directly to young people using that as a subsidy to employers to get those young people into apprenticeships so that they get the skills and the training necessary for them to settle here live their lives here and contribute to an economy that will be better for all New Zealanders. But do we have any of that kind of thinking from members opposite? No. All they can think is “Let’s make it cheaper.”—a bunch of salesmen who think the only way to fix anything is to have a 50 percent cut-price sale and not actually look at improving things. What we have is a Government opposite that has shown that it has no ability to come up with solutions when it comes to creating jobs in this economy. All it has presided over is a growing dole queue and a growing queue to leave the country. There are no solutions. 
This is going to be another piece of legislation that does nothing to address the problem. It is another piece of legislation that is an attack on young people. It is expecting people to live on an income that is simply not liveable. I ask members opposite whether they could live on $10.80. I ask members opposite whether at the age of 19—and they may have had a child—they could really have supported their family. You put this together with National’s 90-day trial legislation—which members opposite have told us you know has been so good—but where are the jobs? There are fewer of them than when National took office. It is shedding jobs not creating jobs. 
This is a Government that has run out of ideas. It is a disappointment to all of us. It has no ability to turn things round. All this Government can do is sit there and sneer and not come up with ideas. This is a Government that needs to go back and think about how we really will back our young people in this country because the Government opposite is failing to do so.