Little Andrew: Minimum Wage (Starting-out Wage) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Little Andrew: Minimum Wage (Starting-out Wage) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 18 October 2012. Volume:684;Page:6009. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
ANDREW LITTLE (Labour) 
: 
 I would like to say that it is great to have the opportunity to speak on the Minimum Wage (Starting-out Wage) Amendment Bill but this is a shocking piece of legislation. It is a bill of failure and of a failing Government that has no ideas and does not care about young people in this country. In a country where the median household income has been steadily going downwards for the last 3 years where hundreds of thousands of people are struggling to make ends meet where poverty is afflicting our young in ever-greater numbers where important sectors in the economy are shrinking—sectors like manufacturing and the service sector—and are letting workers go what would you do? Would you encourage new investment? Would you support employers to invest in new technology and the skills for their workforce? Would you support our young especially our young who are hardest to reach those who are disaffected disillusioned disengaged and now increasingly disappointed with this Government? Would you help them to get into training? Well not this Government—not this Government. It has only one direction and I am not talking about the boy band either. It has only one direction and it is cheaper and it is nastier. It is cheaper and it is nastier and the cheaper and the nastier the better this Government likes it. 
This bill is about failure. It is a failure in policies a failure of ideas and a failure of leadership. It is about appealing to failing businesses because the only businesses that are interested in paying pocket money to young people to do adults’ work are dumb businesses bad businesses and grubby little businesses that we need fewer of in this country if we want a brighter future. This is not about doing anything good for young people. It is not about helping young people to get a start or get ahead. This is pure and simple about exploitation. It is about taking advantage of people often in a desperate and distressed state and compelling them into low-quality low-grade and dead-end work. It comes down to this: this Government—the members opposite—just do not understand the labour market. They never have; they never will. They have no qualms about presiding over a gradual decline and reduction in the wages of working people. 
The explanatory note of the bill says that it “is aimed at influencing employers’ demand for young workers.” It will not influence demand for young workers because it cannot. What influences demand for workers of any type—young middle-aged or old—is whether there is work to do. Either there is work to do or there is not. If there is work to do an employer has a choice to make. They can decide whether to do it themselves they can decide whether to get someone else to do it or they can decide that they just will not do it at all. Whether or not you get someone else to do it depends on whether there is dollar to be made or as economists would say that the margin of cost of employing that unit of labour is less than the benefit or return to the business. That is how the labour market works. That is what employment is about. The members opposite all look down because they do not understand this. It is too hard for them and they do not understand working people which is why I do not care about them and why they pass laws like this which are unsympathetic and totally fail to understand the reality of working people. 
Now we get to the nub of the issue: it is about the price of labour. It is about the price of labour and this Government wants to reduce it. 
Dr Cam Calder 
: It’s about jobs. 
ANDREW LITTLE 
: No it is not about jobs because jobs arise when there is work to be done. Jobs happen when there is work to be done. It is all very well for those like the former police officer opposite who have enjoyed the benefit of the largesse of the taxpayer to talk about that but the reality is that employment and job opportunities happen when there is work to be done and it reflects the state of the economy. And the economy is rapidly going down the toilet as it is under this Government because it has no ideas about stimulating it giving employers a decent chance and taking people on. They do not understand that and they do not care about it so they have put in measures like this. It is not about creating work; it is about displacing good jobs that other people have. If a dumb employer can see an opportunity to pay somebody $10.80 per hour for work that they are presently paying $13 or whatever it is for then they will go for the $10.80. That is what bad employers do and sad to say we have some in this country; I have met one or two. Fortunately they are outnumbered by the good employers the ones who say that they would never indulge in this exploitative behaviour they want a high-quality workplace and high-quality workers they want workers whom they can invest in and they are willing to invest in them and they see it as a relationship of equals not of one exploiting the other. That is the difference. 
We know that this Government wants cheaper wages and lower quality because the Minister of Finance Bill English has boasted about it. He boasted about it this year saying that a way to compete with Australia was to have lower wages and everything this Government does in employment legislation and industrial relations is about going down that path. Members opposite know that they understand it they are too embarrassed to admit it and they are going to dress it up and say it is about creating jobs but this will not create a single job like every other retrograde measure that they have passed. It is like the silly 90-day “no rights” period that they passed. It has not added a single job. It has not added a single job it does not stimulate demand it does not help employers and it just makes it harder for young people. 
 The worst thing if it is possible to say that about different parts of this bill is that if you are a worker over 20 trying to get an apprenticeship this bill will now drive down the wages of apprentices. They are the very people who we need to be investing in. The fitters and the sparkies the builders the carpenters and the instrumentation technicians are who we need more of and who we are desperate for. What does this bill do? It says it is OK to cut their paltry wages paltry as they are. That is the insidious nasty thing about this bill. Far from incentivising investment in young people far from incentivising skills acquisition and investment in a new skills base this does the opposite. It is nasty it is evil it is tawdry it is shameful and it is embarrassing. It is embarrassing to be standing in this House having to debate a piece of legislation that is so retrograde that is so bad and that comes from the 19th century at a time when we thought we were making progress. 
No good employer will be looking to this bill. No good employer will employ anybody under this legislation. The difference between the National Party and the Labour Party is that we will work with the good employers the ones who are prepared to invest in young people the ones who are prepared to invest in good jobs well-paid jobs long-term sustainable jobs and decent jobs that pay well not employers who exploit young people. We will oppose this bill with every fibre in our collective bodies. We have got 34 of them and we will be using all of them to mount our case against this nasty insidious piece of legislation. It is just one of many that we know are coming before this House from this tawdry shabby disaster of a Government. 
We will oppose it and we will be promoting an agenda of good jobs of investment in good jobs and of working with those sensible good employers who know what good work looks like and who are prepared to invest in people who want to work with the Government work with the workforce and work with industry training organisations to achieve just that. That is why we are opposed to this. It is bad legislation. It is grotty legislation from a grotty little Government.