Robertson Grant: Sleepover Wages (Settlement) Bill — First Reading 
Robertson Grant: Sleepover Wages (Settlement) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:676;Page:21475] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 I am pleased to rise to support the Sleepover Wages (Settlement) Bill because as my colleague Darien Fenton said this bill is about a group of vulnerable workers who look after vulnerable people getting a fair deal. It is a fair deal that has been a long time coming. It has been a very long time coming. 
I pay tribute to all of the workers—all 30000 of them—around this country who provide support in our communities for some of the most vulnerable people in our communities. This is the kind of work that gives people dignity and respect in their lives and we owe dignity and respect to the people who deliver these services and to the people who receive these services. Finally tonight we are making some progress on getting there. I pay tribute to Phil Dickson in whose name the case was taken. I also pay tribute to the other workers whom I also met along with many other MPs who told me about the work that they do. 
I have always felt that it was wrong in many ways to call this a sleepover case because actually a sleepover sounds like the kind of thing that Paul Quinn does when he goes to Simon Bridges’ house at the weekend and they have a slumber party and a sleepover. Well that is not what this is at all; this is work. These are people going to work who deserve to be paid fairly for being at work. There is no way that being paid the equivalent of $3.77 an hour which is the situation as it stands today is fair pay for the work that is being done. It is not a sleepover; it is people being interrupted in the middle of the night to toilet to turn people over to actually be there as carers. These people are providing a lifeline. They are providing dignity they are providing respect and they are at work. And that is why they deserve to be paid the minimum wage. In fact in my opinion I would like to see care workers and community support workers in New Zealand paid a lot more than the minimum wage if we can make that happen because they play such an important part in making sure that vulnerable people and elderly New Zealanders get the support and care that they need. They are an important part of what gives our society some morality in terms of how we look after people who are in their old age or are vulnerable. 
In addition to paying tribute to Phil Dickson and the other community support workers I pay tribute to the Service and Food Workers Union which is the union from which Darien Fenton came before she came to Parliament. I pay tribute to them because it is their stickability that has meant this case has gone through. This is a triumph for unions. This is a triumph for collective action in the workplace. It is the actions and the stickability of the Service and Food Workers Union that means this is here tonight. It is not Dr Hutchison who should be taking credit; it is the Service and Food Workers Union and the workers it represents who take the credit for tonight. They stuck at it as the Government pushed through the Court of Appeal—it appealed again and again—to stop people getting what they deserve to stop people getting fair wages for a fair night’s pay. 
So the people who are to be congratulated here are the workers and their union and it shows to me that in New Zealand society strong unions are important because in this case strong unions have delivered to us good outcomes. It is a good outcome for these workers. It is the workers and the unions who have done that. On this side of the House we are proud that we stand up every single day for the rights of working people and for unions. That is what we do on this side of the House 
On the other side of the House Government members denigrate unions on a daily basis. We sat in this House and heard people on that side of the House call unions “Hobbit haters”. Well tonight I want to hear from some National MPs some congratulations to the Service and Food Workers Union on standing up for their members on standing up for what was right rather than the usual diatribe we get from National that unions are the harbingers of evil. Well this is proof positive tonight that in this House we can stand up and support unions for what they have done to make sure that workers get a fair deal that workers get fair pay for their work. 
I am proud to support this bill. I am proud to say that at the end of this process people who look after some of the most vulnerable people in our community will be paid fairly. When Labour is elected to Government they will be getting $15 an hour not just $13 an hour and that will be a great step forward for them. I look forward to seeing this bill come to the Health Committee. We know that at the end of this we will make sure that people who have looked after the vulnerable members of our community get some back-pay—as Darien Fenton said it is not as much as they might have liked but it is a good amount of back-pay—and some certainty going forward that they get fair pay. That is the right thing to do.