Menéndez March Ricardo; Tuiono TeanauRICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Thank you Mr Speaker. Ninety-day trials are hurting workers and the extension of 90-day trials to larger businesses will hurt workers even more.The previous speaker Camilla Belich was very generous in presenting to the Minister and to the members of the Government the evidence as to why 90-day trials have not resulted in higher wages have not resulted in greater retention of workers and have hurt people. I think it was very generous because it's almost like we're pretending the Minister doesn't know. It's almost like we're insulting the Minister's intelligence by assuming that she didn't know any of this.The Minister knows—she does not care. She came into Government to undermine workers' rights. She came to Government to serve the interests of big businesses and this bill is a statement of the Government's intent to lower working conditions to have a low-wage economy and to put workers in a vulnerable position where employers are able to dismiss them at will in those first 90 days without an ability to take that in a way that allows for justice.Throughout the committee of the whole House debate the Minister was unable to substantiate her arguments. She spoke in platitudes about how this will increase the flexibility in the labour market without actually speaking about the direct material outcomes that these workers will have as a result of this policy. The members opposite to me all they could do instead of taking calls in the speech they just clap like seals to a nothing speech from the Minister.Our communities deserve far more than a Government that is hell-bent on ramming through legislation that will hurt our workers—the same workers that serve them at the cafes the same workers that serve them at the restaurants the workers that serve the hotels when they travel around the country to do their mahi. But they do not care because these members did not come to this Chamber to serve the workers; they came to serve the interests of businesses. So as we look forward the Greens will continue fighting to put forward amendments to this legislation to expose the truth which is: we gave the opportunity to the Minister to put in place reporting mechanisms. Because if the Minister was so confident that this bill would have resulted in better outcomes for workers she would have not been afraid of having those reported. Because she claimed and the members of the Government claimed that this Government was founded and was built to honour the facts and the evidence and the latest available research. But let's face it: that is not a commitment that is being put into action because the Minister could only speak in platitudes; could only speak in vague terms when she talked about the future work she may or may not do to ensure that there's information gathering.Chlöe Swarbrick: It's all vibes.RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: So it is all vibes but it is more than just vibes: it's cruel neo-liberal already-proven-to-not-be-true vibes and our workers do not deserve this.What we are creating is a condition where we're not setting up young people to succeed. We're not creating the conditions where those young people going into their first job are supported to succeed. We're creating the conditions where young people going to their first job can be dismissed at will without any reason for them to even—if they had an issue that they genuinely had to resolve we're not going to give them the opportunity to genuinely give them that recourse. Something that we actually did try to negotiate with the Minister but she wasn't even willing to meet us in the middle. Because again she knows what she is doing. She knows that she came here to hurt workers' interests and throughout the committee of the whole House she has proven all of that to be true.Chlöe Swarbrick: Yes she's cruel.RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: Yes the Minister is cruel. The policies are cruel and it is a bit of a change of tune right? We had what we called the politics of kindness" and the Greens were always quite clear that the politics of kindness needed to be matched with changes into material realities. But this Government has done a full 180 and has now instilled the politics of cruelness and the politics of greed—and this bill again speaks to that.I want to mihi to the workers who as they change employment will now be subjected to this policy. I want to assure those workers that the Green Party will be here to listen to the experiences of those workers who are now undergoing 90-day trials in larger businesses. I want to honour the contributions of countless workers who made submissions back when the 90-day trials were being clawed back who made submissions to remind us that 90-day trials were not working.We've already heard the voices of workers. The Minister is not interested in hearing the voices of workers. She thinks that she can justify poor policy making poor lawmaking poor process because it's in the coalition agreement. But let me tell you what: there's a reason why we have these processes. It's so that we can't hurt our communities through just going through the whim of a paper that was signed by three parties that all they want to do is serve the interests of businesses and the service of workers.As I have this privilege of taking the last call of the night I want to remind the members that as they go forward and debate these issues in relationship to the workers they may want to consider adding some substance to their words. I listened very carefully to the contributions they made—and sure some of them may have been in a rush to go back home to spend time with family over the holiday period and some of them will get a holiday period with family and friends. But those workers who are now going to be subject to those policies they're going to be subjected to potentially feeling they're going to have to work longer hours and be subjected to strenuous conditions over the Christmas break—and the summer period—particularly as this policy comes into place. Because if they don't take these strenuous conditions they could just be fired at will with no good reason.One of the other things we tried to put as an amendment was the ability to make it clear that employers would have had to add justification to add a reason at least that they were dismissing those workers in a 90-day trial. We thought that was a reasonable thing for the Minister to take up because once again if the Minister is so confident that when there's not a good match 90-day trials are a way to actually get rid of those workers that are not a good match then there is nothing to hide. Those employers should give a reason to those workers and she didn't even want to compromise in that regard.Those amendments were not for us to be happy with a middle position. They were there to expose the Minister's intentions but she was not interested in any of the evidence. This was not at all about reaching a sort of middle ground with the Minister: this was about showing the Minister her own true colours of greed of her inability to see workers in the face. I hope that our workers confront the Minister throughout the term for her decisions; that they are able to tell her directly what impact this policy is having on them because she clearly was not interested in hearing this through a select committee stage.Look I finally just want to pay tribute to our union movement who—Hon Member: Of course you do.RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: And of course we do because this side of the House supports our workers Because that side of the House only wants to listen to the business interests. That side of the House at no point in the debate talked about workers—the people who actually build their economy the people who actually create the profits of the employers that talk about the people who are foundational to our society. The employers that the people on the Government's side talk about should be reminded that without their workers they are nothing—without their workers they would have no profits. And they should be careful because the more they undermine workers' rights the more they're eroding social cohesion and the more they're creating a situation by eroding social cohesion we're continuing to have discontent.They themselves are manufacturing a crisis of inequality by keeping wages low by preventing working conditions from improving and the next time they talk about their concerns about social cohesion—and I hear the next lot of National Party members making maiden speeches about their concerns about discrimination and racism and inequality—they need to remember that it was their parties who created the conditions for those things to happen.The Green Party will continue fighting throughout the term against the politics of cruelty. All the snarky comments that this side may make can't hide the fact that they have no substance to add to this bill. All they had to add to this bill was snark. It was baseless arguments and yet they're quite willing to put in the energy to go until midnight to add their pettiness to the debate instead of being able to put the facts into this place.The Green Party will fight this till the very very bitter end.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Members the House is suspended until 9 a.m. this morning. Haere ki te moe. Pō mārie.Debate interrupted.Sitting suspended from 12.01 midnight to 9 a.m. (Thursday)"