Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT in support of this Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlements Amendment Bill. The ACT Party is supporting this bill for a very simple reason: that some of the hardest working most essential people in this country are the care and support workers who benefit from the pay rates set out in this legislation and the admittedly small but none the less pay increases that they will have delivered.Now we think that you know there's a lot of underlying problems that I'm going to address but at the same time I think it would be wrong and churlish not to at least support that. There is a history to this legislation which unfortunately I have to say has been subjected to some historical amnesia by speakers so far on both sides of the House. Seeing as we've got a decent half hour of speaking time tonight—and that's not counting committee stage—it's worth just working through some of it. The Kristine Bartlett and Seafood Workers Union—Hon Michael Woodhouse: Seafood?DAVID SEYMOUR: —case—it's not the right one; I know. The Service and Food Workers Union—it's getting close to dinner time but it was certainly the Service and Food Workers Union. It has led the court to make a rather novel finding that the Pay Equity Act 1972—Hon Michael Woodhouse: Equal Pay Act.DAVID SEYMOUR: —was not about—the Equal Pay Act was not about—see it is getting close to dinner. The Equal Pay Act was not simply about making sure that one job with a man and a woman working in it would not discriminate in terms of pay. They found that actually entire groups of workers could be discriminated against and even men doing that type of work could be paid less because the whole type of worker was discriminated against based on gender. This was quite a challenge to the Government at the time. I said that there's some historical amnesia. One of the National members said Well the Government could have sat back with the popcorn and just watched." Well that's not my recollection of being on the Cabinet Social Policy Committee at the time. There was enormous concern because the precedent that had been set in the Bartlett case meant that there might be challenges in all sorts of areas of work many of which would have fiscal implications because in many cases the Government was if not the direct employer of people who might take a case at least the funder of those areas such as care homes. So the Government fundamentally had to make a choice. It had three basic options. One was to stay out of it see what the courts found and suffer the slings and arrows as case after case was taken and the courts found that groups of people were entitled to be paid more much of which would have fiscal implications for the Crown.The second option was to actually stick to the professed principles of at least some members of that Government and certainly this one and say "Actually you know what? We don't want judges to set wages for entire sectors of the economy based on the assumption that there's rampant sexism and people are being paid based on their gender rather than the actual work they are doing. We're going to legislate over the top of this finding and say that the Equal Pay Act is for individuals. It doesn't allow the kind of finding that the courts have just made." and move on in a market economy where wages are set between willing employers and willing employees. That would have been the principled approach to take but it's not the approach that the Government at that time did take. What the Government did is as part of the 2017 Budget—and what we didn't know at the time but turned out to be its dying months—pass a piece of legislation which basically said there was no right to bring any more such cases for care and support workers and as a sweetener to that care and support workers would be paid at a certain minimum rate set out in the schedules of the Act. In other words instead of the judges setting pay rates for groups of people Parliament decided to start setting pay rates for groups of people which if you believe in open markets and willing employers and willing employees is anathema—but nevertheless that's what the then National-led Government did. It also said that this will expire in exactly five years which as it turns out that time is up on 30 June which must be about next Saturday. Now to give credit to that Government they did do one thing right which is that they referred the legislation to a 10-day select committee. At any other time a 10-day select committee would be seen as rushed legislation insincere not giving people the time to properly prepare submissions. But the thing about a 10-day select committee is that it's infinitely better than what's being done tonight having a zero-day select committee. That means that this legislation will be passed without any input whatsoever from interested members of the public unless the Government has chosen to approach them. There are two problems with that. One is lack of knowledge—there may be people with insights into this legislation who would have come forward but haven't been asked. The second is with open Government and democracy. So there may be people who have a view who will not be able to express it because the Government of the day didn't ask them. That's why we have a Parliament. That's why we have select committees. That's why we seek public submissions because we're actually an open society that allows all people to give a view. So that is the history that got us here and I don't think the National Government of the time is quite as blameless let alone heroic as it has been described. It was put in a difficult position by the courts and it basically reacted by kicking the can down the road five years.But none of that is to excuse where we've got to over five years which is that this Government has had five years to settle these pay equity claims and couldn't do it. So now with about eight days remaining with no public consultation under urgency they're going to rush through an 18-month extension to give themselves some extra time hoping that they'll kick a few goals then and that is—Hon Gerry Brownlee: They won't do it.DAVID SEYMOUR: Yeah and Gerry Brownlee says "They won't do it." One of the things I've learnt is that Gerry Brownlee has deep insights and he's probably right on this one. The question is: what should have been done—or what should be done? Well one of the things that needs to be done is we need to confront a reality that is underlying this whole problem and it is the simple fact that New Zealand claims First World status and yet we increasingly do not have it. In the time this Labour Government's been in power the gap between New Zealand's median wage and Australia's has grown $6600 a year. Now that's not the gap is $6600; the gap has got $6600 greater just in five years. We're going to keep rubbing up against issues like this under urgency trying to solve problems that no one's really had the courage to solve because we want to be First World. We want to have care and support workers. We want to feel that everyone that needs care and support is going to be looked after at the highest possible First World standard but increasingly we can't afford it. The problem is that we haven't even had the ability to negotiate even with the Government we currently have. Now an interesting fact: I don't put a lot of store in what people did before they were in Parliament—I'm interested in what they do when they're here—but 30 percent of the current Labour caucus were union organisers. This is the most extraordinary thing. In the general New Zealand population 0.026 percent of New Zealanders are union organisers. That means a Labour MP is 10000 times more likely to be a union organiser than the average New Zealander. You might have thought—Hon Willie Jackson: I was a union organiser.DAVID SEYMOUR: —that such a group of people—and I'm not saying it's a bad thing but Willie Jackson's just said he was a union organiser.Hon Gerry Brownlee: He also said he didn't know what he was doing.DAVID SEYMOUR: Well he also said he didn't know what he was doing. But you think about it: if there was ever a Government that you thought might have a chance of actually settling these pay equity agreements you would hope that it might be one that was 30 percent union organisers but as it turned out they were not able to do that. That has got us into the current muddle. The previous Government didn't have the courage of its convictions to put in place the proper policy. The current Government hasn't had the alacrity or the urgency or the wealth or the wherewithal to actually settle the pay equity agreements and as a result we are like a tinpot little country here under urgency passing laws because we've run out of options through the lack of alacrity shown through this Government. And yet all the party is able to do is support it because the alternative would be even worse. Thank you Madam Speaker."