Fenton Darien: Minimum Wage (Abolition of Age Discrimination)Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Fenton Darien: Minimum Wage (Abolition of Age Discrimination)Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:640;Page:10726] 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 I am pleased to speak in support of the second reading of the Minimum Wage (Abolition of Age Discrimination) Amendment Bill and I congratulate Sue Bradford on bringing this debate to the House. I also congratulate New Zealand First and United Future on supporting the bill as it stands. Also as people will have noticed the majority of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee are recommending this bill. I think the select committee report does reflect the genuine consideration we gave to all submitters. 
I want to acknowledge particularly all the young workers who came to the select committee to tell their stories. It was very entertaining at times. In fact I think it was the first time I have been at a select committee meeting where we had submissioners telling their stories by mime. That was from the Radical Youth and I think they told the story very well. I think there is no doubt that our future is in very good hands when we consider the leadership and passion of the many young people whom the select committee had the privilege of hearing from. 
I think the majority of the select committee have agreed that the basis of the original bill is right and that it does not make sense—nor is it just—to continue to pay workers less just because of their age. I think we all believe that age discrimination is wrong just as discrimination on the basis of gender and race is wrong and that it is not fair to pay 16 and 17-year-olds a lower minimum wage. 
However I do not agree that the bill as reported back entrenches discrimination. Our recommendation for the 200 hours means that workers get more pay once that initial experience of 200 hours has been gained—and it is worth noting for the Maori Party that it is not included in the bill; this is a recommendation to the Minister when she considers after consultation with the social partners at the end of the year recommendations on setting the minimum wage in the future. 
The proposal for 200 hours makes sense to me because in my experience as an advocate for workers paying workers for experience is quite common and many collective agreements often reflect just that. A worker gets paid more for the experience once he or she has worked for a particular time. It is called service pay. It might be a bit old-fashioned in the minds of some employers but it is something that workers feel very strongly about. I have had many debates with workers about that particular issue. They often say: “Why is it fair that someone coming into a job who is brand new should get paid the same as me when I’ve been here 2 or 3 years?”. That is how they feel about it. So the select committee’s proposal is talking about 200 hours of experience and being paid on the same basis once they have gained that experience. What is more that experience can be accumulated across many different employers. 
The other question that I think will come up as we go through this debate will be about whether those workers work 200 hours for 5 weeks as full-time employees or 200 hours for however many months for part-time workers. I have to say again that my experience tells me that workers will say it is unfair if some workers have to work 5 weeks as a part-time employee working a couple of hours a week and others have to do 200 hours as a full-time employee working for 5 weeks at 40 hours per week. I have tried to think through how that could be adjusted but for me it comes back to a matter of fairness. We are talking about fairness and experience and it is a hard issue but it is something that I think many many workers will be saying about this. 
So what we are saying is that 16 and 17-year-olds who supervise other workers should not be paid a youth minimum wage. I think that also reflects that the bill as written actually locks in 80 percent for people who are new entrants. Some people may not be aware that the Minimum Wage Act does not say that young workers who are 16 and 17 years old should be paid 80 percent of the adult minimum wage. It is left to Governments and Ministers and so on and we all know what our experience has been of that. So it locks it in at 80 percent of the adult minimum wage and that is a good thing. 
One of the interesting things employers were telling us—and in fact unions were as well—was that progress is being made on collective agreements on youth minimum wages. They are abolishing youth rates and I say congratulations to the unions on running a campaign and getting employers to listen to it. What employers were really saying to the unions and to us was that they will not pay youth minimum wages provided their competitors are not paying youth minimum wages. I think we will see that change over time. If we look at the industries where youth minimum wages are paid we see that they are in the supermarkets in the retail industry in the hospitality industry and in jobs where young workers often do the jobs that adults will not do. 
But it is also worth noting here that we are talking about minimum wages. We are not talking about paid rates as we would call them as advocates in our past lives. We are talking about minimums—the minimum below which no workers can be paid. We were told that most employers pay above the youth minimum wage. So what we are trying to do here is to deal with the most vulnerable; the workers who are most likely to be employed by employers who rely on minimum wages and who pay young workers less than they are worth. 
One of things the select committee heard which I think needs further consideration—it is not in the report back but I think we do need to reflect on it—is the issue of workers under 16. Many of the submitters who came to the select committee talked about their lives as workers as 14 and 15-year-olds. Of course the Government is currently considering ILO Convention 138 the minimum age convention. It is a tricky issue really as to what is the balance between enabling young people to work and raise a little bit of pocket money or money to support their study versus the minimum age at which people should be able to work. But it is an issue that needs attention and I think it will continue to come up but it was outside the scope of the bill. 
The other thing that has not been mentioned in the debate so far is that although the author of the bill is disappointed in the result from the select committee the response we have come up with is a world-leading one. I was very interested in hearing from various groups including the Department of Labour about which countries do not have reduced rates for young workers. It is very hard to find too many countries actually. There is Cyprus Estonia Greece Latvia Slovenia and Spain—so we are talking about being among I suppose OECD countries that are leading the world in this in being able to say we are making progress on removing lower rates for 16 and 17-year-olds on the basis of their age. 
I want to make a response to Hone Harawira. He said in his speech that he would be voting against the bill. One of things that perhaps members do not understand is that this bill is an enabling bill. He will not find when he goes through the bill anything about 200 hours. As I have mentioned the select committee proposal provides a recommendation to the Minister but the Minister is then required to review the rates to discuss that with its social partners and to come up with a solution at the end of it. So I simply do not believe that the hundreds of young workers who submitted on this bill would prefer to continue to wait for 2 years to get their adult minimum wage rather than for 5 weeks or 200 hours as in the proposal that has come forward. 
Finally I would just like to say that the National Distribution Union which has been very active on this particular bill says in its press release today that it is urging Parliament to take the next step and vote for the second reading of this bill so we can continue the debate. I think it will be a real shame if members like those in the Maori Party vote against it because all that will do is ensure that the injustices we have at the moment will continue in their current form. Thank you.