Wood MichaelFAIR PAY AGREEMENTS BILLSecond ReadingHon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): I present a legislative statement on the Fair Pay Agreements Bill.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.Hon MICHAEL WOOD: I move That the Fair Pay Agreements Bill be now read a second time.It is most appropriate that this piece of legislation is continuing its passage through the House this week because tomorrow is Thank Your Cleaner Day a day on which we are called upon to recognise and remember the essential work of cleaners right across our society here in Aotearoa New Zealand and right around the world. Cleaners are actually often not seen. I'm very conscious of the fact that in office blocks and factories and indeed in these halls of Parliament it is often after we have finished work left for the night and gone home that cleaners come into our workplaces and ensure that they are clean safe and hygienic for all of us to be able to work in. Can anyone argue with the value that cleaners bring to our society particularly when we reflect upon the one-in-100-year pandemic that we have just gotten through? How could our workplaces how could our hospitals how could our other environments—our aged-care homes—continue to have functioned without the essential work of our cleaners? Yet as is the fact that often their work is done at night sometimes they have been invisible and certainly that has been the case within our employment relations system. Often these people are the worst paid with the worst conditions and the least secure work in our country.The Fair Pay Agreements Bill is about changing that. It is about making sure that workers like cleaners and many others once again have a voice that we stop the race to the bottom that for over 30 years has brought down pay conditions and security for many workers doing this critical work in our society. It's our cleaners our bus drivers our security guards our retail workers our orderlies our aged-care workers our early childhood education teachers. Our society relies on the work of so many of these workers but the race to the bottom that they have experienced has meant that their work has not been valued as it should and at its core that is what fair pay agreements (FPAs) are about. They are about valuing work. Consistently the message goes out from this Chamber about the value of work and sometimes people who do not participate in work are derided for not doing so. Well if we put that value on work as I believe and the Labour Party and the labour movement believes we should then it is utterly inconsistent to not ensure that that work is paid for in a fair and a just way.Fair pay agreements are also fundamentally about recognising that every good and every service that we consume in our society comes about because of the contribution of both the employer and the employee of both capital and labour working together. So it is not unreasonable—in fact I would propose that it is entirely appropriate—that both of those parties have a seat at the table when it comes to fundamental conversations and discussions and bargaining about how the fruits of economic growth are shared in our country.Finally fair pay agreements are about recognising that a basic minimum floor—because that is what fair pay agreements are—is good for workers in terms of protecting their pay and conditions but it is also good for good businesses because the good businesses the overwhelming number of good businesses who want to pay fair pay and conditions and want to do the right thing and want to take the high road they're the ones who are undermined by the race to the bottom because the bad guys get the competitive advantage by coming in underneath that. Fair pay agreements by putting that minimum floor in place ensure a level playing field for the worker and also for the good employer.Fair pay agreements will not affect all workers in New Zealand and I doubt even that they will end up affecting most workers in New Zealand. But for those workers who need it who have lost their voice and who have suffered from that race to the bottom fair pay agreements will bring some justice and some dignity. The method they will use for doing that is not even a particularly novel or new or unique one in our world. It is the core mechanism of collective bargaining that consistently has been the way in which the inherent imbalance of power in the employment relationship has been dealt with here in New Zealand and internationally for 150 years. It is the proven mechanism for ensuring that there is a degree of fairness and equality across the labour market. It is these groups of workers who have missed out on that mechanism for 30 years since the Employment Contracts Act.As I said before ending the race to the bottom is good for workers and it is good for good employers but it is also one of the keys to getting on the high road with a high-growth high-productivity economy in which we shift away from an economic model which is based on competition around low cost and low wages to an economic model that is based on competition about the things that actually drive value and prosperity. Competition that is based on the quality of goods and services is good. Competition that is based on innovation and R & D is good. Competition that is based on increased rates of productivity is good. We support those things but we undermine that direction when we set up an employment and labour market that is based on competition that is based on low wages. In bringing forward the fair pay agreements legislation this Labour Government fundamentally sends the message that competition based on low wages is not where our country should be.I want to thank the Education and Workforce Committee for their consideration of this legislation. They received 1800 submissions and went through 29 hours of oral submissions. In my first reading speech I was very clear that this is a complex piece of legislation. It is a new framework for employers and employees to work with. I expected that the legislation that came back having heard submissions would look different and indeed the select committee have done their job well. They have come back and they have suggested a range of practical changes to the legislation in response to submissions that they heard to ensure that it works as effectively as possible for everyone who will be part of the system. They have incorporated changes around the backstop mechanism they have made changes to the purpose statement to be much clearer about the intent of the legislation and they've put in place practical changes around how coverage will be defined to ensure that there is as much clarity as possible about how and when FPAs will apply to employees. They've made changes to ensure that skills and training and leave provisions are mandatory to agree within fair pay agreements in response to submissions and for the public interest test they have provided clarity that pay and another factor will need to be met before the public interest test to initiate bargaining is proceeded with.The select committee process has also been a great time to bust myths about FPAs and there have been so many of these as part of a calculated campaign of disinformation against FPAs. So let's be clear about this in the House. The lines that have been put about that people will have to join unions—untrue. The lines that have been put about that there will be strikes and lockouts—untrue; not allowed under this legislation. The lines that have been put about that employers will not be able to bargain with the employees—untrue. The line that was put about laughably that somehow this piece of legislation would breach international labour law—well when that argument was put at the International Labour Organisation you could've heard the tumbleweed blow through the halls in Geneva such was the weakness and the implausibility of that argument. When you take away the disinformation that has been put about in opposition to FPAs all that we are left with is a primal and inflexive hatred of unions and collective bargaining from the parties opposite and that will come through in spades in their speeches in this debate I am sure this afternoon. Well they will be proven wrong. FPAs as they have been around the world will be proven to be good for our economy and good for good businesses. Many countries around the world with better levels of productivity have sector-based bargaining agreements of this kind that we are proposing here in New Zealand. FPAs will support us on to that high road and many of the things that have been claimed will simply not come to pass. A race to the bottom is no way to drive a highly productive and fair economy and that is why we must make this change at this time.FPAs will make a difference to those cleaners and those other workers who keep our country going who kept our country going during COVID when we needed them the most and have been undervalued for so long. My colleague opposite this morning claimed very blithely that those people are not underpaid. Well that is an argument that he can seek to sustain. The reality is that much of the opposition to FPAs comes from some of the people and organisations in this country who are paid the very most telling those who are paid the very least that they should be grateful for what they've got and not dream or not hope for anything a little bit better than what they've had for 30 years.As I said at the beginning tomorrow is international Thank Your Cleaner Day. Saying thank you is a good start—it's a decent thing to do—but it's not enough. On this side of the House we are backing those workers and we are backing that thankyou and those words with real change through this legislation that will make work fair again. I commend this bill to the House.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The question is that the motion be agreed to.