Wood MichaelHon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): Madam Chair thank you. I'm happy to respond to a couple of the questions from Mr Watts and Mr Uffindell. Mr Watts' questions were largely focused around questions around costs. To be honest I'm not entirely clear how they relate to clause 26 of Part 3 of the bill which relates to the initiation of bargaining to be quite honest. The reason that there are a range of costs none the less in the information produced by the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) is that this is an enabling framework and in the end costs and benefits will fall based on where and when and how quickly fair pay agreements are initiated and how many people they cover and that will ultimately be up to parties in the system to work through. There's a fundamental difference here between the member's analysis and the Government's. The member sees it as a zero-sum game—that employees potentially receiving improved pay and conditions necessarily means that others in the system are worse off. They argue that every time we put the minimum wage up; yet economic growth has continued to grow when we do that. Unemployment has continued to fall and corporate profits have actually continued to increase. There is actually such a thing as investing in workers and making sure they have fair pay and conditions that can actually benefit the overall economy. And that to be honest in this debate fair and square is the difference between the view the Government has and the view that the Opposition has but I'm not sure it really goes to this part. The member is right that there's no off the hook" for the public sector here. It applies to employers whether they're private sector NGO or public sector and that is the fair and the appropriate thing to do. If the Government is responsible for paying people in a way that is low or inappropriate then I do hope that fair pay agreements are a way of improving things for those workers. Mr Uffindell asked further questions around the requirements for advising people that a fair pay agreement has been initiated. I've responded to that already and provided clear information and it's there in the bill around the use of websites around the use of MBIE's channels and around the use of daily newspapers as well. I've got to be honest in respect of some of the examples Mr Uffindell gives I just think it shows a lack of understanding around the reality of life for low-paid workers in New Zealand. We're not talking about people who have share plans. We're not talking about people working in highly paid roles at the top of banking institutions or the private medical sector or public relations. We are talking about the low-paid workers who often don't have pay progression who often have been stuck at or near the minimum wage for years and years and years and have to work multiple jobs and have insecure lives because of those conditions. I understand that is a different circle from that which many members opposite move within but that is who this bill is focused on and the examples that the member gives shows that he has very little appreciation of that. The member also needs to note—and again please I ask all members engaging in this debate to read the bill. He makes commentary about people who work in contract areas. The bill does not cover contractors."