Jones Shane: Minimum Wage and Remuneration Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Jones Shane: Minimum Wage and Remuneration Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:654;Page:3911] 
Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) 
: 
 Kia ora ano tatou. We stand to support our colleague in the chair Darien Fenton who is moving this legislation which will protect vulnerable people. I must say that recently my senior colleague Parekura Horomia and I met some of those vulnerable people in the fast-food industry. We felt an obligation to stand with them during the hikoi and we took a short opportunity to visit them. They reminded us that they have bleak and bitter memories of their parents’ stories about being shafted and half-starved during the time of the previous National Government. That is why they join us in supporting these amendments. [ 
Interruption 
] We have got some squeaking from the back from Mr Bridges and others. Chicken nuggets? Forget it. They have no impact on Parekura Horomia and me. 
We are here to remind workers of the next opportunity that will arise. Actually it is very interesting that Tau Henare and Hone Harawira are sitting here in the Chamber. I am not sure whether they were on the select committee that dealt with this bill but I know that today the Clerk’s Office had to be called to separate them while they were sitting on their own select committee. Hone Harawira would not listen because his leader is in Sydney Melbourne Canberra or somewhere else and Tau Henare as a consequence of being sidelined listens to no one. He needs to listen to the workers whose lives will be enhanced and improved by this legislation. 
Hon Parekura Horomia 
: He was a union organiser! 
Hon SHANE JONES 
: OK; Tau Henare should know a little about this. He cut his teeth on the union movement before he set a record in the House for joining how many wakas? Tahi rua toru wha! Wha wha. I am on Part 2 again. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. There was a Maori word in there that I think should be translated for those who do not understand that language. I wonder whether he could help the Committee out. 
Hon SHANE JONES 
: I say that tahi is one then the next word is two then three and then four. To emphasise the noun in Maori we repeat it twice. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: That is all we need to know. Although we can have a bit of a laugh this is interrupting the flow of the debate. 
Hon SHANE JONES 
: I agree with Mr David Parker and Mr Grant Robertson that this bill provides a mechanism to review progress. The behaviour and conduct of our friends on the other side of the Chamber will be reviewed next year and in 2011. Firstly those members are anti-jobs and secondly they do not care about the rising level of poverty that will surround these people. This legislation is modest in character yet National members do not even have the charity of heart or spirit to move away from their hard cold callous ideology to support it. That is shocking. That is why we agree that this bill should go ahead with a review clause that has a focus on those people who have been vulnerable for far too long. They know their fortunes are ebbing under the current Government which is also what we will see tomorrow in the Budget. 
But coming back to Part 2 again there is a very interesting option in new section 6A inserted in the Minimum Wage Act by clause 8. It provides for a minimum rate of remuneration. I ask why it is that no one on that side of the Chamber will openly agree with a minimum rate or remuneration as our senior colleague Mr Hodgson said. Why are members opposite hiding the fact that their real agenda is to rely on the ruthlessness of the market wage which is constantly driven down and will be driven down again? Part of the status of being a citizen of New Zealand is that we should be able to rely on certain protections when entering the labour market. Members on this side of the Chamber are prepared to stand up for those protections and safeguards. Members on that side of the Chamber constantly want to marginalise the amount of influence power and relevance that these vulnerable workers will have. Well those workers were out in force up and down Queen Street from the south to the north. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: Pull your tie down bro. 
Hon SHANE JONES 
: Mr Henare was not there. He is a lion in the House but when he went to Auckland he did not say anything about the hikoi—not a single thing. 
Chris Tremain 
: What’s this got to do with Part 2? 
Hon SHANE JONES 
: Of course many of the people who will be enhanced by Part 2 were walking and rubbing shoulders with Parekura Horomia myself and a variety of others. They know that as a consequence of this legislation they will be on a permanent Happy Meal—that is why. This legislation will buttress and enhance the appeal of our fellow member there amongst those elements of the community who know they cannot rely on the forces on that side of the Chamber. The forces on that side of the Chamber have a bleak view that remuneration should not be set at a minimum level and should never be reviewed. The sooner we see the rear end of that thinking the better for everyone.