Ball Darroch: Home and Community Support (Payment for Travel Between Clients) Settlement Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBall Darroch: Home and Community Support (Payment for Travel Between Clients) Settlement Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 13 October 2015. Volume:709;Page:7151. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DARROCH BALL (NZ First): It is a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First—and actually on behalf of Barbara Stewart our spokesperson for this bill—to speak on the Home and Community Support (Payment for Travel Between Clients) Settlement Bill. I would like to begin by stating first and foremost that this bill formalises in legislation an already agreed settlement negotiated between the estimated 24000 home and community support service workers’ unions providers and district health boards to ensure home and community-based care and support workers receive compensation for the time and cost of travel between clients. For this reason New Zealand First will be supporting this bill through to select committee.Having said that we in New Zealand First hold firm reservations about the process by which this bill came into the House and its glaring flaws in what it is trying to achieve. The bill is an example of the Government acting on the worst of motivations. Rather than delivering what is right and what is fair for New Zealand workers the Government has chosen to take an underhanded approach and legislate one of the most deserving most undervalued workforces out of what is rightfully theirs. The truth is that the only reason this bill is in this House is that the Government wants to stop legal action from the home and community support workforce and remove any liability for the $261 million of back payments for travel expenses to which the sector is entitled.What is worse is that the only reason the Government wants to stop that legal action is that it does not want to set a precedent within the wider labour market regarding what can be considered work under the Minimum Wage Act. The cost of future action due to this precedent is unknown but officials have already warned that it is significant.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! Can I just ask the member to resume his seat. I have reflected on what he said at the beginning and also on a note that I have been sent from the spokesperson but I do want to warn the member that he is not allowed to just read out a speech even if it has been prepared by or for another member. If the member really wants someone else’s speech on the record of the House the member can table it but he actually has to give a speech not read it out.DARROCH BALL: The decision to bring this legislation to the House is not motivated by a wish to help New Zealand workers earn what they deserve. Instead it is providing a bare minimum of compromises in terms of actual expenditure in order to prevent care workers receiving what they actually deserve. In the end it is actually stopping New Zealand workers in the future from trying to justifiably seek compensation for work they are currently doing. In fact workers should not actually have to go to the courts and take this sort of action in order for them to get what rightfully is theirs.At this point I would like to touch on what the home and community support workforce is actually to receive. By the interim solution between 1 July 2015 and 29 February 2016 the workforce will be paid a figure that represents the minimum wage for the average time spent travelling between clients and from 1 March 2016 this will change to employees being compensated at the minimum wage for qualifying travel time and receiving no less than 50c per kilometre for the qualifying time. Yet the Inland Revenue Department actually estimates the per kilometre reasonable expenditure to be around 74c per kilometre incurred by an employer—and that includes the petrol prices as well. So if that is the case then legislating for up to just 50c per kilometre will fail to achieve the bill’s actual designed intent and aim in the first place and obviously that does not fairly compensate the home and community support workforce for the travel times and the cost that it incurs. Therefore it actually shows that it represents a further example of Government legislation that claims to be having a meaningful change where in fact it is asking the organisations to do more with less.If we look at Part B of the terms of the settlement—although that part is not actually included within the provisions of the bill itself it does remain important and relevant—what it does is it focuses on the commitment from all the parties towards having a regularised workforce within 24 months following the settlement taking effect. Quoting directly from the health report to the Minister of Health related to this commitment it sums up exactly why regulation is needed in the first place. “The regularised model is expected to be beneficial for all parties … and will ensure continued viability of HCSS as a cost effective alternative to residential care.” However “such progress is subject to affordability and implementation occurring within available funding”. So the funding that is available at the moment being $38 million that was put forward for the additional costs of the travel expenses in the workforce is again asking home and community support to deliver more but without giving them any more investment necessary to make it work.In other words the settlement agreement and the bill in particular is not the Government riding in to save the day for home and community support as it would have us believe but rather a demonstration of how badly mismanaged home and community support is and the lack of future planning that has gone into home and community support services from this Government in the first place. Even having withheld the $261 million in the first place the Government still cannot deliver sufficient funding to implement necessary changes.So yes New Zealand First will be supporting this piece of legislation through to the select committee because it is a step in the right direction but it is the least that can be done. There needs to be in fact a dramatic overhaul of the entire funding of the sector with a focus on workforce planning to futureproof New Zealand from the coming crisis in our care workforce. This needs to be only the start of a continued effort by the Government to get the funding and the organisation for this sector right and to give the home and community support service workforce the support it actually deserves. Thank you.