Joyce Steven: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeJoyce Steven: General Debate[Sitting date: 12 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:5709. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Economic Development): I move That the House take note of miscellaneous business. I bring news from the political front lines. The leader of the Labour Party has been in office now for nearly 9 months—nearly 9 months—and he has stamped his authority on the party he leads. Well he has made a lot of policy pronouncements. Can you remember them all? They have been fantastic policy pronouncements. The first one is that he is going to leave the 90-day period for new employers small employers in place—except he is not. He made a decision later that day that it would need to change. That was his first announcement.He has also announced that he supports a referendum on the flag but he does not now support a referendum on the flag. He also made a speech in which he floated the idea of means testing access to superannuation. That was a goodie. Do you know how long that lasted? Two hours—2 hours and it was gone. Yesterday he said there was too much foreign investment in New Zealand and 1 hour later do you know what he said? We need more foreign investment in New Zealand’s regions. This man is on fire. This man is throwing policy out there like there is no tomorrow. He wants to change the national anthem. [Interruption] No he does not. So actually all his pronouncements so far have disappeared with alarming efficiency within hours—except for one.There has been one announcement that continues to grind on one contribution so far by Mr Little to political discourse and that is—his favourite and ours—the Future of Work Commission. That is a beauty. He sent out his trusted sidekick Grant Robertson to find out what work is—[Interruption]—yes OK not trusted—and what is work’s future. It is a little ironic I agree that Grant Robertson has been selected for that task but it is a personal journey for Grant as much as it is a political journey. He wants to know what work is so he can get on with some. He has been sent out there. The last work he did by the way was winning the seventh form debating prize and we continue to hear him repeat that success in the House every day.So let us look at the product of the Future of Work Commission. The first report is out and it makes for interesting reading although sometimes perhaps it is a little obvious. Nevertheless it says: “Work done in entirely new technology businesses the huge range of knowledge and media endeavours the factory floor and even family businesses have been reshaped by new pathways to information and new ways of selling goods and services.” You might think you have heard that before and you have because that is a direct quote from the Pew Research Center. How do I know? Because one of Labour’s disaffected members decided to fisk this particular report and discovered not one not two not three not four but five or six direct lifts from The Economist from the Business Insider from a whole range of reports. It is plagiarism.That is the future of work. The future of work is plagiarism according to Mr Robertson. But that is OK. He has snuck out another report. You will notice that it is going well the Future of Work Commission when they release their reports on a Friday afternoon. This report is a new one that talks about the security of income and work. I decided not to read this one because I might have read it before. I thought I could save myself the time. I thought I would read Vernon Small’s article on it. At least you can be confident that Vernon wrote it originally even if you could not be confident about the Labour Party. Anyway it raises a very interesting thing. It talks about the flexicurity “golden triangle” which involves “flexible rules for employers when hiring and firing”—this is the Danish model apparently—“alongside a guaranteed unemployment benefit at … up to 90 per cent for the lowest paid workers …”. So why would you work if you get 90 percent of the money for not working at all? There you go—90 percent.So I think we have discovered that Grant Robertson’s future of work so far is copying other people’s work and now no work at all. Copying other people’s work and no work at all—that is Grant Robertson. Actually when you think about it it all makes sense: copying work and no work at all; Grant Robertson—the circle is complete. The circle is complete. The inquiry is over. Grant Robertson has described himself. He can now report back to Andrew Little: “Mission accomplished!”.