Wood MichaelHon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Immigration): This week I want to wish one and all a very very happy Labour Day although I do pass on to the Leader of the Opposition my thoughts and prayers as he has to deal with the trauma and shared mental dislocation of living through a public holiday that he wants to abolish. And at the same time I do wish to pass on my apologies to him for the fact that just days before that we made an announcement about investing in the national ticketing solution for public transport given as we know that he thinks that public transport should Stand on its own two feet without any support from Government".But as we celebrate Labour Day this week the big win for working people is this Government moving forward and reaching that manifesto commitment of legislating for fair pay agreements (FPAs) for the working people of New Zealand. They are about stopping the race to the bottom and closing the door on a 30-year experiment with low wages that that party on the other side of the House has never been able to move beyond.Fair pay agreements are about a new dawn for the people who clean our offices who clean this Parliament who drive the buses around our cities who care for our old people and who teach our youngest children. Fair pay agreements—so clearly in this House as they have made their way through—are also a marker of values and a marker of priorities because while this Government stands by low and middle income people and is always looking for how we can improve life for them the focus on that side of the House is on how they can shovel tax cuts as much as possible to the wealthy few. I've been doing a few figures on this one because sometimes you can work out how values translate into real-world facts and figures and this is worth understanding because it makes it pretty stark. That party over there every single member on that side of the House would give themselves an $8000 tax cut—that's what they would give themselves: an $8000 tax cut.Well as it would happen as it happens it would take a minimum wage worker like a cleaner earning a full-time wage between Labour Day and the end of the year to earn the $8000 that they would give themselves at the stroke of a pen. And it gets worse for were Mr Luxon—God forbid—to be the Prime Minister in a position to do that he would be giving himself an $18000 tax cut that would take a minimum wage worker five months to earn. That is the difference between this side of the House who stands with working New Zealanders and that side of the House who stands for unfunded tax cuts to the wealthy few. And that is the choice that New Zealanders face.The increases to the minimum wage that this Government this Labour Government has delivered to the lowest-income New Zealanders since 2017—those people who worked so hard up and down our country—$218 more per week in their pockets. Mr Luxon's tax cut would give himself a tax cut of $346 per week. And so let's get past—let's get past—the fine words and the pearl clutching about cost of living and how it impacts low and middle income earners from that side of the House because the policies that they would advance the values that they actually stand for are all about the needs of those at the top and would do nothing—would do nothing—for those on the low and middle incomes in New Zealand that this Government is supporting.And that is such a clear choice for New Zealanders and it just goes on and on because every single policy that this Government puts in place to support working people is opposed by that side of the House. The minimum wage: opposed by National. FPAs: opposed by National. A Matariki public holiday: opposed by National. Ten days' sick leave in the middle of a global pandemic: opposed by National. Our investment in working people through more apprenticeships for our young people to give them skills and training; cheaper doctors' visits for our kids; free lunches for our kids in schools put through by Labour Budgets: opposed by National. And that is because that side of the House continues to have a narrow zero-sum game of investing in working people where they always see it as a cost; we see it as an investment on the side of the House.So as we celebrate Labour this day I say thank you to the working people of this country for everything that you contribute. Fair pay agreements this week will make a real difference. This is a Labour Government that backs working people every step of the way."