Fenton Darien: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFenton Darien: General Debate[Sitting date: 10 April 2013. Volume:689;Page:9238. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DARIEN FENTON (Labour): Today 1300 food service workers who work in our public hospitals were told by the Minister of Health Tony Ryall and this Government that they are just back-office workers—just back-office workers. These are the 1300 workers up and down the country in every hospital in small towns and large who prepare cook and serve meals to hospital patients—those people who are in hospital relying on decent nutritious and healthy food in their recovery after illness or surgery. That comment from the Minister Tony Ryall shows just how much regard this Government has for hard-working New Zealanders who are out there doing their besttrying to do their best for the community and their families and that is why we cannot trust the John Key - led Government. Those people from what Tony Ryall said today are just figures on paper. They are not real people; they are dollars to be mined on an already stretched budget. There are no worries no concerns about the families and communities that will be affected no concerns about what will happen to those hard-working New Zealanders and their families and no worries that there are another 1300 jobs on the line to add to the thousands and thousands that are part of this Government’s disgraceful record of job loss and failure to do anything about it.Today the Minister and the Government not only demonstrated their ignorance about the work that our food service workers do in our public hospitals but also demonstrated their complete ignorance about the difference between contracting in and contracting out. Let us be clear. This is not about food service workers in hospitals working for contractors as indeed many already do; this is about closing hospital kitchens and having food shipped in from central food production factories in Christchurch and Wellington and heated up like TV dinners in the wards. There is already a preferred provider being indicated which is multinational company Compass. What is indicated is that it will have a 15-year contract so no one else will get a look-in. This proposal will be in place by the end of the year. Compass is proposing to use its product called Steamplicity which is pretty common in the UK. You do not have to go far online to find out all of the issues there have been about food in hospitals in the UK but they are currently trialling it at Hillmorton Hospital. I am told that even the potatoes there are imported from Holland. In a country like New Zealand it is importing even the potatoes.At the same time this is happening when the Government is proposing to make major changes to the laws that protect food service workers in hospitals and throughout the country and that is with the changes to Part 6A of the Employment Relations Act which I understand will be introduced very shortly. But it is typical because the Government always picks on the lowest paid when it comes to changes. It always goes after the food service workers. It always goes after the cleaners. It always goes after the orderlies.It has done it before. We have been down this path before and it has failed. In 1993 when that member Nick Smith was in Government a National Government brought into New Zealand a new company called Tempo Services. It came to town promising hospitals and the Government massive savings on food service production and cleaning. What we saw was large-scale job losses—massive job losses—and cuts to pay and hours of work. It even subcontracted its work to another catering operation to avoid rights. In 1995 it changed its name to Tempo Delaware North Corporation to provide the expertise and capital to implement a cook-chill catering system which is similar to what is being proposed today. After it unsuccessfully tried to increase its contract rate the corporation then tried to cut the workers’ wages by 25 percent. It failed. The workers refused. The corporation left town with its tail between its legs owing money up and down the country. Let us not go there again.