Delahunty Catherine: Sleepover Wages (Settlement) Bill — First Reading 
Delahunty Catherine: Sleepover Wages (Settlement) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:676;Page:21476] 
CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Deputy Speaker. Tena koutou e te Whare. The Green Party is very happy to support the passage of the Sleepover Wages (Settlement) Bill. We congratulate the Service and Food Workers Union—Nga Ringa Tota—in particular the Public Service Association (PSA) and Mr Phillip William Dickson on their perseverance in a just cause. We also acknowledge the Government for finally making an agreement that may not be perfect but does address the two fundamental issues of back-pay and a process towards the minimum wage for these workers. 
The Green Party would be a lot happier if the minimum wage payment started now rather than being phased in by 25 December 2012 but we recognise that a deal has been struck and that this legislation will facilitate the back-pay to 30000 workers who badly need it before this Christmas. The Green Party understands why the Government needed to intervene and assist with the back-pay. This has been a longstanding anomalous injustice that may have overwhelmed IDEA Services if it had to pay back the full pay and the minimum wage immediately. 
But how on earth was it possible that people at work were not being paid the minimum wage for so many years? Did this happen to the firefighters ambulance officers and resident doctors who also have to sleep over as it is called? Of course not. The reason this was allowed to happen is not pretty. It reflects the values of a society that is rife with prejudice against people with disabilities and towards carers as a profession. It is treated as a low-status job working with even lower-status people who need and receive skilled and practical support that has been barely valued. 
When I read what the job involved it sounded suspiciously like what was once called “women’s work”—all that meal provision bathing clothing residents doctors’ appointments personal care and all that hard sensitive intelligent and often physical work. The sleepover as Grant Robertson has just said was not popcorn; it was about being exploited for doing something important—something that I doubt most people in this House could do. And at night the job does not stop. People with a range of disabilities or mental health issues need supervision medication and support 24 hours a day. That is their human right. 
I would like to see people like myself cope with the complexity of this work 24 hours a day for less than the minimum wage for half of the time. And less than the minimum wage was $3.77 an hour—pocket money tokenism and an insult to both their work and their responsibilities. And this is for the vital care of citizens whose human rights require us to make sure they have an independent life. So thanks to the advocacy and determination of the unions since 2007 and two legal decisions by the Employment Relations Authority and the Court of Appeal the legal justification for not paying sleepover workers the minimum wage disappeared. 
The Green Party is happy to see the Government doing the right thing by the Court of Appeal judgment unlike with the other piece of legislation we have had before the House where the Government is seeking to undermine the Supreme Court judgment in the video surveillance monitoring debacle. So now the 5000 cases filed by the Service and Food Workers Union and the PSA can be properly addressed. 
This law creates a staged progression towards full compliance with the Minimum Wage Act 1983. It has a formula for this progression which starts at 50 percent of the minimum wage from now until 30 June 2012; 75 percent from 1 July 2012 to 24 December 2012; and 100 percent of the minimum wage from 25 December 2012 to 30 June 2013. Then an employer must pay an employee for each hour of the sleepover performed by the employee at not less than the rate of the minimum hourly wage rate under the Minimum Wage Act—and that will be about time. 
The Green Party believes we should lift the minimum wage to $15 an hour immediately and then make it two-thirds of the average wage within 4 years and it would be great if these workers who have already been discriminated against could have the benefit of a lift in the minimum wage right now. The back-pay for these workers who have performed sleepover as it is called for the last 6 years has been calculated by a formula described in the bill as (((a × 9) - b) + c) × 0.50 = d. What does it actually mean? I have absolutely no idea. It is interesting to read it in the bill because one wonders who made it up. Is it to help people understand the issues? 
I have no idea what on earth that formula means in mathematical terms but I do have faith that if the Service and Food Workers Union the PSA and the workers agree that it is a reasonable way to calculate the back-pay under the current constraints they are working with in a very conciliatory and practical way then the Greens will not disagree with them about this incomprehensible formula that the Government has written into this necessary legislation. 
Sometimes there is really no good excuse for an employer or the Ministry of Health to keep behaving badly. Even though it will cost money—as in $27.5 million back-pay and up to $90 million in lifting up the wages to the minimum wage over time and it is far too much time in my view—they cannot sustain the pretence failed argument or denial that what people are doing is actually work. 
It pains me that the resistance of IDEA Services and the Crown has wasted money in the court that was badly needed to pay these people the minimum wage now. I do not see this work as minimum wage work. It is far too hard it is far too demanding and it is far too skilled. Any job that involves nights away from home is hard work but it is especially hard work when one has broken sleep responsibility for vulnerable people in unpredictable circumstances and disruptions to family life under those circumstances. None of that is yet remotely acknowledged or compensated for by the Court of Appeal settlement or this bill. We have just got to first base. I am hopeful that we can do a whole lot better than just get to first base in our treatment of workers in the next Parliament should we be lucky enough to be there. 
Really I celebrate the achievement but there are so many caveats These people are still not getting the deal they should be getting. We first have to acknowledge that these people have been working all the time. We then need to pay them what they are worth and pay them back what they were worth. None of that will happen. Eventually they will get the minimum wage. If members have spent any time with people in residential care who are vulnerable they will know how complex the job is for those workers. 
If one has family members who are cared for by workers who have this kind of job and give that kind of support—as I have—it is somewhat obscene to know that the minimum wage is all they will get paid. National members stand here in this House and say that eventually those workers will get the minimum wage. Well whoopee! We know what the minimum wage will cover these days. It will not cover those workers’ costs it will not cover their living expenses and it will not cover the dedication of these workers to the communities who have a right to residential care and independence. They also need to be respected as do the workers. 
I believe that the lack of respect for persons with disabilities and the lack of respect for carers is perhaps one of the most obscene aspects of the 21st century in this country. We are still fighting for recognition that caring for people is actually as valuable if not more valuable than being a banker and giving oneself a big fat bonus for playing with other people’s money. That is what this should be about—recognising the people with the skill and capacity to care for others. I think Rodney Hide told me that those who do special education work are saints and that they do not need a pay rise. I do not believe that saints do not eat. I do not even think these people would appreciate being called saints. They would like to be called workers who are entitled to a wage that reflects the capacity that they show in looking after people in the community whom we need help to support. 
Let this be the beginning of an uplifting of their role their money their back-pay and all the rest of it. I am glad we have got here. I am glad we have got here before Christmas. It is really really important that these people wait no longer. This bill is a good reason for urgency. Unlike the Video Camera Surveillance (Temporary Measures) Bill which is a shame a disgrace and an abuse of power this is a good reason for urgency. It is urgent. Justice is urgent so let us have justice. Thank you very much.