Goff Phil: Minimum Wage (Starting-out Wage) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Goff Phil: Minimum Wage (Starting-out Wage) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 19 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8637. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill) 
: 
 Some of the arguments have been brought out very clearly by the Opposition as to why this bill the Minimum Wage (Starting-out Wage) Amendment Bill should not proceed. I think the critical argument is that this bill is a bill with a low-wage vision for New Zealand when any New Zealander knows that our future depends on being high-skilled high-waged and high-tech. This idea that we can compete with the world by continuing to slash the wages that we pay to our people is absolutely discredited—absolutely discredited. 
I tell the members opposite to read what the departmental regulatory impact statement says about this bill. This is what the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment advised the Minister of Labour. The first thing it advised the Minister was that it had not considered the options. Why had it not considered the options? Because the Minister had said: “This is what you are going to do.” So the ministry says right up front: “This might not be the best way to go but we have no choice. This is what the Minister insisted on.” Then it says that on balance it thinks that “the proposed starting out wage will have positive employment impacts for the targeted groups.” What it says later on is that the targeted group might see a little bit of job creation—maybe a few hundred—but that will be at the expense of other groups which will be displaced. It says that quite explicitly. That is likely to mean in particular that some 18 and 19-year-olds without much work experience and people aged 20 and over and on a benefit may be less attractive to employers than the 16-year-olds or 17-year-olds on the starting-out wage. So you try to address the problem with unemployed 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds by making more 18 19 and 20-year-olds unemployed. 
Then there is the Ministry of Education. What does that ministry say about this bill? It says that it is not the right thing to do that it is not consistent with the goal of getting more young people to stay at school to increase their skills and that it is encouraging unskilled young people to drop out of school and to go into a job that they will get because they are paid peanuts. We do not need more unskilled 16 and 17-year-olds leaving school to go into the workforce. We need more 16 and 17-year-olds staying at school and improving their educational qualifications. 
David Bennett 
: Come on Phil it’s not an election campaign. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: We need more young people to get skilled trades and I put it to Mr Bennett—oh I am very glad to see Mr Bennett here. Let me remind Mr Bennett what he said about this bill when it was in Roger Douglas’ name. David Bennett said on 21 April 2010—not even 3 years ago; Mr Bennett remember this—“The fundamental proposition this bill puts up is that we need to pay people less to get them in their first job so that they can have an unskilled future.” Mr Bennett is that what you said—really? And you went on to say: “That is what this bill essentially will do to New Zealanders. We see a different future for New Zealanders. We want those young people to get into training and skills so that they are not talking about getting the lowest-paid job they possibly can but instead they are looking to get the best-paid job they possibly can.” Mr Bennett you were right then and you are wrong now. You could not be more wrong. 
I say this to the Government: what about Labour’s suggestion? We know that we are short of skilled tradespeople. We do not have the people to rebuild Christchurch. We do not have the people who will be needed if a Government ever had the imaginative policy of creating more houses in Auckland. What we need to do is get young people off the dole and into skilled training and what better way than what Labour was proposing at the last election: to actually pay the first year’s unemployment benefit to the employer in order to encourage the employer to take on additional apprentices? Get more young people into genuine skilled opportunities. Get more people into apprenticeships not Mr Bennett slash apprenticeships by 20 percent as this National Government has done and not as this Government has done cut $53 million out of skilled training two Budgets ago when what we actually need is for more young people to have skills to contribute to this country. 
Do you know what a low-wage vision is for this country? It is a one-way plane ticket for more and more New Zealanders to fly to Australia. Why are they going to Australia Mr Bennett? They are going to Australia because your Government has not created job opportunities here—