Goudie Sandra: Disabled Persons Employment Promotion (Repeal and Related Matters) Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Goudie Sandra: Disabled Persons Employment Promotion (Repeal and Related Matters) Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 27 February 2007. Volume:637;Page:7731. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) 
: 
 I really think that the Disabled Persons Employment Promotion (Repeal and Related Matters) Bill could probably at this stage be called the “Disabled Persons Unemployment Promotion (Repeal and Related Matters) Bill”. I say that because that is likely to be one of the outcomes when this bill is passed. The Minister Ruth Dyson constantly refuses to recognise that there was no adequate consultation over this bill and that nothing was done to really ascertain how this bill will affect the people it applies to and to protect them so that they have a job to go to. 
 A number of work providers have said quite clearly that they will not be able to employ all of the people they are currently looking after within their working environments. Those working environments are not just businesses—they are much much more than that. They care for those people. They help them with their budgets with their medications and with anything they need in terms of their health personal care accommodation and contact with family and friends. They provide a friendly caring environment. They provide social interaction with people and provide social activities as well. Some of those people will be denied that because those work providers will not be able to afford to employ them. So this will be the “Disabled Persons (Unemployment Promotion) Bill”. Let us make no mistake about it; that will happen. 
The reason the Green Party supports this bill is that it believes that people with disabilities should have the same employment and work conditions as other employees. The problem is that those people have to have a job in the first place. Right now they are on a benefit yes but that benefit is supplemented because they go to a work environment where they feel valued. They feel that they are working and contributing. Now there is every likelihood that a number of those people will have that opportunity taken away from them. All of the other services which are not paid for by this Government—the services that people in our voluntary sector and in the workplaces that assist people with disabilities provided free of charge—are provided because the work providers care about those people and they want to do that. 
What will happen? “Stan the man” will go along to somewhere like Workforce Industries or the Abilities Group in Auckland and he will be told the organisation is sorry but the bill has gone through so it has to pay all of the people minimum wages but it cannot afford to do that. So those providers will have to say to people like Stan: “I am sorry Stan you can’t come on Monday. Sorry mate.” They will have difficulty even explaining that to him. He will ask: “Why can’t I come on Monday? What is it that’s stopping me coming on Monday?” and the provider will have to say: “Well I’m sorry but we just can’t afford to pay the minimum wage.” He will say: “But why can’t you? I’ve been coming all these years; why can’t I keep coming?”. How will people like Stan understand what this is all about? Where will they get the care they have been experiencing? What about the relationships they have built up and the support they have been getting with their budgets with their health and with everything else—even personal care? Those providers will not be able to afford to provide those extra services along with trying to maintain a business while having to pay the minimum wage to employees in their workforce. 
That issue is at the heart of our opposition to this bill. If we thought that everybody would be looked after and would continue to have a quality of life and feel valued then that would be fine. But that will not happen because the consultation has not been undertaken that should have been. Workforce Industries supports the repeal of the legislation. It is a great employer as my most excellent colleague Dr Paul Hutchison said. It looks after 170 people in its workforce environment. It supports this bill but it has also clearly said that the issues have not been worked through and the people and their families who will be directly affected have not been adequately consulted. They have not been given the assurances or the outcomes they have sought from the Minister in the chair the Hon Ruth Dyson. The Minister has failed to provide those assurances to a huge number of the 3000 people who she purports to be in this sector.