Clark DavidDr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): I challenge Minister Woodhouse to double the quota of refugees. I was out on the parliamentary forecourt this afternoon where people made the point that that Minister and his Prime Minister have not visited a refugee camp themselves. The last Labour Government took refugees when there was a crisis. When I was a child growing up there were Cambodian refugees taken in by New Zealand. The people want to have these people in the country—the churches and the community groups pledge that they will help. They are doing it in Dunedin; we can do it across New Zealand. New Zealanders are big enough people to do more than we are currently doing and I think that the Minister knows that. I want to speak a little bit about the way that the odds are stacked against middle New Zealand under this Government because we have a Government sitting there opposite that has just put through a Budget that has absolutely nothing in it to solve the housing crisis an education budget that has frozen the operations grants for schools and is going to see parents fork out more in voluntary donations and a health budget that does nothing to address the $1.7 billion of underfunding that that Government has brought in over the last 6 years. It is busy working in the interests of the ultra-wealthy and not in the interests of most New Zealanders. You can see it clearly every time an issue comes up. On the Panama Papers the Prime Minister's first response was: That's going to be $24 million that the industry misses out on." A short-term monetary response—not looking at New Zealand's international reputation and not showing any values that New Zealanders could identify with. We see it with the Skycity deal—done behind closed doors with big corporates. We see it with the housing speculators. This Government has done nothing to curb housing speculation. That is because it is more interested in the interests of the ultra-wealthy than the interests of middle New Zealand. When an issue does arise that hits middle New Zealand in the pocket the Government runs a mile. I am going to talk now about the great salary stuff-up the issue of payroll in New Zealand—the great salary stuff-up. It is not the cock-up that catches out a Government Minister; it is the cover-up. That is what I want to say to the Minister for Economic Development today because this Government has covered up something that has been going on since 2009 unchecked in this country. It did a review of the Holidays Act back then it found that there were some inadequacies in the Act and it changed the law and it has only made it worse. Then it buried the issue. Since that time the Government's estimate says that up to $2.2 billion in debt—Hon Member: How much?Dr DAVID CLARK: —up to $2.2 billion—in debt has accrued to employers because this Government has failed to address this payroll issue. That is not just a matter of that big figure; this is an issue affecting middle New Zealand. The Government says that up to 763000 New Zealanders—up to 763000 New Zealanders—may have been underpaid for the last 6 years. That is one in three working people in New Zealand who may not have been paid correctly. People do not know it yet—people do not know it—because they themselves have not checked whether they have had the right pay cheque. The Minister is not making it easy for them. He is not releasing the list of payroll providers that are carrying people on their books who have not been paid correctly. Most employers do not know that they have done it. Employers in my experience act in good faith. They want a clear set of rules and they want to do what is right by their employees. They do not want to short-change them. They are doing what their payroll suggests—they are following the automatic settings. They are doing what they think is right and this Government has failed in its oversight of payroll in New Zealand and allowed that liability to grow. The Government has been covering up this issue for the last 6 years and allowing those New Zealanders to be underpaid for all of this time. The Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment estimates that most people affected are missing out by between $250 and $500 a year. That adds up over time. Over 6 years that means that some people will have been underpaid by $3000 and they do not know it yet. The Government's low-end estimate actually is that nearly 200000 people have been underpaid. People out there watching this today will not yet know that they have been underpaid. The Government should release the list of those companies that are carrying people who have been underpaid and if it is not going to do that we will release the list on this side of the House in due course because we cannot let this continue. This Government's cover-up is going to cost it. When an issue comes up that affects middle New Zealand it does not stand up and make sure that middle New Zealand is looked out for. It has not looked to correct this issue; it has put employers in a difficult position—they are underpaying employees in New Zealand and this is to the tune of billions of dollars. The Minister needs to take some accountability. This issue is going to affect so many New Zealanders. Check your pay cheques out there and watch this space because there will be a lot more to come on this one."