Roche Denise: Home and Community Support (Payment for Travel Between Clients) Settlement Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRoche Denise: Home and Community Support (Payment for Travel Between Clients) Settlement Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 16 February 2016. Volume:711;Page:9014. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENISE ROCHE (Green): It is a pleasure to take a call for the Green Party on the Home and Community Support (Payment for Travel Between Clients) Settlement Bill in this part of the proceedings the Committee of the whole House.I would like to start my speech by acknowledging the genesis of this bill. The genesis of this bill really does rest with Jenny Goodman the home-care worker and New Zealand Public Service Association Inc. (PSA) member who with her union lodged a claim with the Employment Relations Authority way back in August 2013. The union and Jenny were basically acting on some of the recommendations that were coming through from the Human Rights Commission report Caring Counts put together by Dr Judy McGregor who was one of the commissioners at the time. She actually went undercover as a home-care worker in order to have a look at how the aged-care sector worked and what the conditions were that the women—mostly women—in that industry faced as well as of course the clients themselves.What Dr McGregor recommended was a series of things but the first five were that the Government show leadership to deliver better services to older people because we are not paying home support workers or even rest home workers as well as they should be paid. We have to acknowledge that they are underpaid and that is what the equal pay case is about which is currently being negotiated. But when we do not pay them well enough then essentially it is a disservice to the clients they look after. She also recommended that the woefully low wages be addressed and that as a minimum the Government-funded service provided in the aged-care sector including home support should actually reach some sort of parity with those who are employed directly by district health boards.Dr McGregor also suggested that there be a consistent and fair travel policy covering actual time and costs and this is what we are discussing today but also that there be a commitment to qualifications for staff and that employers commit to this and that there be voluntary safety standards including a home and community support sector standard and that that become compulsory. This would set out minimum standards for care which would protect older people as well as the workforce. This bill is actually the result of the Ministry of Health and the employers and the unions agreeing that they will address the issue at least around travel time.As a result of the agreement to withdraw legal proceedings and to forgo back-pay claims for the workers in the home support sector there is also an agreement that the working group that was set up to address this issue carry on and look at the qualifications for home support workers but also look at regularising their hours of work. Essentially the home-care support sector is based on zero-hour contracts. That is exactly how it works and it is a scourge for workers across the country because essentially from week to week many workers cannot actually determine how much they will get paid or plan how they will spend that pay as a result.As a result of the negotiations this was the deal—that qualifications would be discussed and there would be an attempt to regularise the workforce so that it could have secure hours in that area. It is a real tribute to the negotiating powers and goodwill I would say from Jenny Goodman and from all those members of the PSA who have ratified this that workers are looking forward to the future to a time where they can have regularised hours and a career path with training that would be offered to them and acknowledged within their pay scales.The settlement is also constructed so that although it is going to cost $38 million I think in order to bring the travel time into play so that all those workers in that sector do get paid the travel time—despite that—we need to make sure that the money that goes into the home support employers is actually passed on to the home support workers themselves. This is an undertaking that the employers themselves have signed up to and they are the ones that are listed in the schedules to this legislation.The legislation does also make mention of ACC home support workers who are working with ACC clients. That area needs to be addressed as well because—and I have done it myself when I was a home-care worker with the Nurse Maude Association many years ago—if you are working as a home support worker some of your clients are ACC clients but some are covered by the district health boardand you get different pay rates because there is no consistency across there. This needs to be addressed for ACC home support workers as well—that they get paid their travel time.This is going to have a major effect on the industry itself but I am really pleased to see that the employers have signed up to it. They recognise that in order to provide really good service to those clients in our community—most of whom are our most vulnerable and the workers themselves have been vulnerable too—these issues of underpayment of travel time not being paid need to be addressed now.In context there is still a lot of work to be done in the whole sector. As we know the aged-care sector is a female-dominated occupation and as a consequence—and as Judy McGregor outlined—the wages have been incredibly low. The Kristine Bartlett case for rest home workers from the E tū union has also resulted in more negotiations with the sector and with the Crown about how to apply equal pay across this female-dominated workforce. That is something that we look forward to in the future.It struck me as I was again reading the bill that the only comparison I can make is that it is similar to a Treaty settlement bill in that there have been major negotiations with several parties some of whom may or may not be accepting of the deal. But there has been a deal struck and that deal that negotiation is now brought before Parliament to be enacted. So it is with pleasure that we will be supporting this bill and we look forward to the day when pay equity comes before this House as well.