Lees-Galloway IainIAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): There is a group of people who earn more than $50 an hour and have not earned a cent of it tonight and they are the National caucus members who have stood up and spoken on this bill without reading a word of it I think and especially without reading any of the amendments proposed on the Supplementary Order Papers put up by my colleague David Parker. If they took time to read them they would realise that every single one of the arguments they have put up against this legislation is dealt with in the Supplementary Order Papers proposed by David Parker. Let us go through their arguments. First of all we had Parmjeet Parmar saying: Well what if someone is working for multiple contractors multiple principals? Which one of them is responsible for paying the minimum wage? Oh gosh! It is so damn difficult. We can't do it." It is simple. New section 6A(2) in clause 10 says "Subsection (1) does not apply to a specified contractor who is providing a service to more than 1 principal at the same time …". End of story—that problem is dealt with right there in that proposal in David Parker's Supplementary Order Paper 203. Then we had this other argument about: "Oh well you know it could take the person longer than they thought it was going to take them to do the job so you're going to have to pay them more because they're going to do more hours or the person might be old and they might not get around as quickly as a young person and so you know it would be terrible to have to pay them more." Well let us have a look at new section 11AC in clause 13 entitled "Specified contractor may not recover minimum remuneration for time that exceeds agreed reasonable time to provide service". So it is pretty simple. When you enter into the contract you agree how long it should take to do the job you agree on a rate that would make that job pay the minimum wage and if the person takes longer than the agreed reasonable time that is fine—new section 11AC says they cannot recover any more money because they went over the agreed time. The only requirement is that the agreed time is reasonable and the rate of pay is reasonable. Let us face the facts. National's opposition to this legislation is purely ideological. It is not based on any practical concerns at all because every single one of the things that its members have raised in this debate tonight is dealt with. They have not raised one single legitimate concern—or at least if they have raised a legitimate concern David Parker has dealt with it. It is all here in the legislation and it is all here in the Supplementary Order Papers. The fact is that National does not want workers to earn a reasonable wage. It wants some employers to be able to circumvent our employment law and pay people less than the minimum wage. That is why National is opposing this legislation. It does not want working people to get a fair share of the improvements in productivity. It wants only its supporters—the owners of capital—to get all of that share and it wants people to work harder and harder and harder for less and less pay. That is why people cannot afford to live in houses under the National Government—because they do not earn enough to pay the prices that the National Government allows our housing market to get to. That is what is going on in this country and that is why Chris Hipkins was absolutely right when he said that if you ignore these problems for too long if you push people down then you get Brexit you get Trump you get all of those things that we are seeing around the world and that is exactly where National is leading us. National members cannot argue this one on the facts. They cannot argue this one on the detail of the bill. They have come down here and demonstrated that they have not been paying attention and they have not been earning their money reading the bill and properly considering the amendments proposed by David Parker. They are opposing this purely on ideological grounds because they want working people to earn the barest minimum if not less so that the people they stand for—the few at the top; the speculators—can do well out of a growing economy and everybody else can get stuffed. That is why National is opposing this bill."