Clark DavidDr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): I am delighted to stand in favour of this bill and to have sat on the Health Committee which the Minister has referred to. He is indeed correct that the work of the officials was exceptional. We were very well served on that committee I would like to say from the outset by the officials who worked some long hours to make sure that there was proper scrutiny of this bill through the truncated select committee process. I just think it is worth noting when officials do bend over backwards to make good things like this happen and the committee was well served. So thank you very much to those officials.The settlement is of course an absolute victory for determination and for the unions. It will mean that 55000 low-paid workers will get a well-deserved pay rise. They will be paid what they should always have been paid thanks to Kristine Bartlett and her union and the persistence that they had in fighting through the court case. Of course we know that the Government has been dragged kicking and screaming up to this point. It had lawyers at each appeal stage of the case opposing the lower court's decision on pay equity determinations. It came to the negotiating table only because it absolutely had to. We would not have reached this point had it not been for the union and we will see that other workers will benefit from this settlement beyond the members of the union itself. I thank them for their persistence for their hard work and for standing up for New Zealanders to make sure that they are paid adequately for the work that they do so caringly day in and day out. It will be a spur to many others to push to ensure that they too receive equitable payment for a fair day's work. I look forward to seeing how that plays out over time.The Government itself has been as I said reluctant all the way through the process. It is true across the health sector. We have seen another Budget that is $200 million short in funding the health sector—what it would have required just to stand still. So as that Budget debate has been drawn to a close with something of a flourish by Steven Joyce I think it is worth noting that district health boards around the country will be struggling.In the case of this equal pay settlement it is also true that many providers will struggle because while the settlement is right and just and good and is supported and was supported by the submitters who came to the select committee many raised concerns about the ability of providers to make ends meet with the requirements placed on them and the lack of commensurate funding from the Government. So while the Parliament will sit in support of this bill the responsibility for funding rests with the Government and it has chosen to go light on the funding and we will see over time the real effect that that has on providers of aged-care services.To illustrate the point about how reluctant this Government has been to get to this point I wish to traverse briefly some other measures that have been taken over the years and debated in this Parliament. The Equal Pay Act of 1972 was where this all started. That brought to an end the gender-differentiated pay rates for men and women performing the same work. That Act in 1972 was an absolute landmark. It is from that point that we have moved forward to today but we have also seen along the way many humps in the road. Clerical workers had gained pay equity with carpenters as a result of that Act but by the mid-1980s that equity had slipped and the clerical administrators' union took a case to the court against the Farmers Trading Co and the court unfortunately declined jurisdiction to hear that case.But subsequently the Employment Equity Act was put through this Parliament in 1990 in an attempt to describe procedures to achieve employment equity—in particular it looked at the identification of areas of paid employment in which inequality of opportunity for designated groups existed or inequality of remuneration for women existed and looked at the redress of the inequitable impact on women of any current or historical discrimination against women in respect of their remuneration. That legislation came into force in 1990. It was of course a little broader than that but it is interesting to note that it was repealed in December 1990 by the incoming National Government—again a hump in the road—and it is interesting to see that it is the National Government that has fought equity along the way.In 2003-04 a task force on pay equity and employment equity in the Public Service was set up and it looked at the education and health sectors and reported back. In response the Government established the pay and employment equity unit within the Department of Labour and a tripartite steering group to oversee the work of the unit. The point that this illustrates again is that we note that in 2009 a few short years later the National Government as it came in abolished the Department of Labour's pay and employment equity unit.Hon Ruth Dyson: They did what?Dr DAVID CLARK: It abolished it. So once again a measure was put in place to try to achieve pay equity and then it was removed by the National Government.So on we go and we look at the case of Kristine Bartlett and the Service and Food Workers Union—now E tū. They lodged their claim in 2012 with the Employment Relations Authority claiming a breach of the Equal Pay Act of 1972. Along the way of course as has been canvassed already in the debates it was fought by the Government which supplied the lawyers to fight it in the courts before finally realising it had no option but to negotiate and that is how we have come—in a truncated version—to where we are today.It is such a good thing that we have got here. It is superb that those 55000 workers will now be paid what they should always have been paid but it should never have been the battle that it has been and I do not doubt that that battle will continue.I want to touch briefly on some of the concerns raised by submitters and I am sure that Poto Williams who was present throughout the select committee process will delve further into these. One of the particular concerns raised was around clause 18(3) and (4) which provides that the funder's determination is final and the effect that that could have as a result as agreements are negotiated. There was a real concern around the way in which the negotiation happened and the fact that 26 percent was a figure used by the Ministry of Health on the way through and was cited throughout the discussions as to the oncosts that employers expected to receive at the last minute. We were told that was changed to 20.9 percent and that was a different calculation and those providers then raised in select committee concerns about the adequacy of that payment and concerns that care would be reduced—that we would shift more towards a ward-block style of care rather than what is commonplace particularly amongst charitable and church-based providers currently.Everybody across the board though—providers unions and all other submitters—seemed very glad and pleased that the workers were finally being recognised for the work that they do. Nobody disputed that that was the right thing to do. Nobody disputed that the Parliament by putting this bill through was doing a good thing to recognise their hard work and what should have always been the case. It is merely the concern about the adequacy of the funding and I think we will see that play out over time as we see some of those providers go to the wall if they are not funded adequately. We were told that the ministry has put aside a contingency within the $2 billion settlement to cover leave liability and so on which people can bid for. That $24 million contingency is open but capped at 4 weeks for those who have ongoing liabilities.I have heard in recent days from several providers concerned about their ongoing viability and I take these concerns to be very real because I know they have come from people who are genuine people providers in the sector and they want to ensure an ongoing high level of care. We also heard from the bigger providers in the sector that presented to the committee that they too have concerns. They are all in this because they want to see people cared for adequately and we hope that the Government will come to the table and ensure that there is adequate payment for those providers to provide what is undoubtedly the right thing to do.