Fenton Darien: General Debate 
Fenton Darien: General Debate 
[Volume:655;Page:4837] 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 I say this to the previous speaker Dr Jackie Blue: what about the lowest unemployment in the OECD that New Zealand had for 9 years under a Labour Government? What about that? It is a bit desperate when members have to go digging around back in the 1980s in order to find someone who will agree with the National Party. My goodness! 
Iain Lees-Galloway 
: That’s so last century! 
DARIEN FENTON 
: It is so last century! 
The Government is failing hard-working New Zealanders. Every day the news gets worse and worse. Every day there are more job lay-offs and more than 1200 people a week are going on to the dole queue. We hear nothing from the Government about it—nothing! There has been a deathly silence since the Job Summit which was held way back in February—a long time ago. There has been nothing but bad news. It is bad news for the 110 Line 7 workers who are facing redundancy; bad news for the 186 Lane Walker Rudkin workers; bad news for the 200 Child Youth and Family and Ministry of Social Development workers; bad news for Summit Wool Spinners workers who are facing redundancy even though they participated in the 9-day working fortnight; bad news for the 900 workers facing uncertainty under Telecom’s change of contract to Visionstream; and bad news for the more than 1700 Public Service workers. The Government is doing nothing to secure the jobs of New Zealanders and to secure their living standards. John Key is failing to protect Kiwi jobs. 
The Government claims that it is trying to cushion the hardest-hit New Zealanders from the effects of the recession by helping businesses to protect jobs and by doing a range of other things that I will talk about. I would like to know how the Government will do this because in this debate all we have heard is some talk about the 1980s. We have heard no plans and no ideas. The only idea of any substance that survived the hot air of the Job Summit was the 9-day working fortnight. How many jobs has that saved? It has saved 345. Of course all good jobs are worth saving—there is no argument about that—but it has saved so few. I do not understand why the Public Service is exempt from this drive to save jobs. Thousands of people in the Public Service are losing their jobs. Somehow public sector workers are not real workers so they are less deserving. The Minister is not even sure that Public Service workers qualify for ReStart a scheme that is the Government’s only contribution to workers who have been made redundant. 
The Government says it is giving New Zealanders who lose their job the best possible chance to find a new one. Well how? I cannot see any ideas and I think John Key has realised he has no ideas because he has said he will come up with some new ones. That is very very funny. We are waiting; we will be interested in that. 
It is not just job losses that are hurting New Zealanders; it is also cuts to pay cuts to hours of work and conditions and no pay increases especially to the lowest paid who need them most in order to keep up with the cost of living. School support staff took part in a pay equity rally outside Parliament yesterday. Labour and Green members were at the rally. School support staff start on the basic wage of $12.94 an hour yet the Government has offered them nothing in their pay round. Not only are hospital cleaners kitchen workers and orderlies being offered nothing by the Government in their pay talks at the moment but also the Government is trying to take back the pay rise it gave those workers last year. That is a zero percent pay increase that is backdated! I think that is how that is being touted. 
It is very very disappointing but not surprising to see a National Government responding with its usual ideology when it comes to facing an economic crisis. It usually attacks workers’ rights and have we not seen that? There is the 90-day bill and now we are looking at a scaling back of the Holidays Act and the Employment Relations Act. There will also be cuts in terms of equity in paid employment so women once again will have to bear the burden of the downturn. 
As more than 1000 Kiwis lose their jobs and income every week because of the recession John Key does nothing to help them and their families. I have to say that the ReStart package just does not cut it nor does the Minister’s grand plan for “McJobs” and minimum wage jobs in the aged-care sector. That is not acceptable; that is not good enough. Even traditionally better-off areas such as Devonport are now having to open food banks. The North Shore area is beset with redundancies not least in John Key’s own area of Kumeu where this week 41 workers at Fletcher Building learnt that their jobs would be lost. That is a lot of jobs lost in a small town. Mr Key could do something about that. One of the major beneficiaries of the Government’s home insulation scheme could be Fletcher Building. He could encourage that company to provide that work and keep jobs.