Jackson WillieHon WILLIE JACKSON (Labour): Well it was great to hear about all the experience that the member Carl Bates had which was absolutely nothing. So thank you for that nothing contribution.I want to inform the House that I've got a lot of experience in this area too. Like Debbie Packer's whānau I was also in the freezing works in 1991 when sadly Jim Bolger and his horrible voluntary unionism set-up came out. It's a sad thing really about Jim Bolger but he came right in later years by supporting the Treaty of Waitangi unlike the rest of this useless National Party and the hopeless ACT Party and the New Zealand First lot who've forgotten their roots sadly.In 1991 the whole line the whole thought was We need more productivity. It's all about market flexibility." So we had to ask ourselves "What the heck is market flexibility? What does that mean?" Well I'll tell you what that meant. It meant they just wanted us to work more and more and more for bugger all. That's what that became. So market flexibility was workers work more and more and more and you get more productivity the company does well but the workers miss out altogether. That's what market flexibility was under a National Government with Ruth Richardson and Jim Bolger. As I said Jim came right later on; sadly Ruth Richardson didn't. Most of the National Party of that time was all about suppressing workers' rights. At the time we had a huge membership in terms of unions. Sadly I think that came down to about 20 percent.The basic thrust of that was to get the workers working as I said at 100 percent but also this whole facade about bargaining. You know the whole view was an individual could negotiate for themselves. That's the thrust of all this legislation: "You're a strong individual. You can do the business." But people know in the House and if you've worked in the unions and if you've worked on the factory floor which most of that lot haven't—most of them wouldn't even know what a factory was. If you've worked on the factory floor you know that you can't negotiate because there's a total imbalance in terms of bargaining power. So the whole notion that individuals have a right and have a chance to negotiate is just a load of nonsense. The bosses sadly through the years have picked off people and people have been lost. So that's been the strength of the unions. The unions have been able to negotiate on behalf of the individual.This fair pay agreement kaupapa has been something that we as a party and we as a former Government were very proud of—very proud of—because it gave workers hope. Workers in the hospitality area workers in the security area bus drivers—these are the forgotten people of this country—Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan: We call them essential workers.Hon WILLIE JACKSON: —the essential workers. These are the people who National and ACT don't care about. They don't give a damn about them. It's really sad. To see a new Minister going down this track is really really disappointing.And I want to thank Michael Wood for the work he did in terms of putting this together. It was one of our proudest moments to have this fair bargaining kaupapa put in place and repealing this initiative is nothing but an attack on some of our most valuable jobs and some of our most vulnerable workers. These Kiwis were the ones who worked through COVID while the rest of us stayed home. Why are we punishing them now through this just before Christmas?The fair pay agreements are something that's so valuable for them. It's given them hope in terms of their agreements. It's not the agreement but it's something that recognises their rights recognises their health areas recognises the special specifications for Māori workers. I know that upsets ACT because they're always booting Māori in the guts and New Zealand First sadly have been supporting them and National too. But Māori get special recognition in terms of fair bargaining and so I was really proud of what we were able to put in place put our frameworks in place but for it all to be repealed before Christmas is one of the saddest strategies I've ever seen from any Government over the years and the National Party New Zealand First and ACT should hang their heads in shame."