Brown Peter: Minimum Wage and Remuneration Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Brown Peter: Minimum Wage and Remuneration Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:647;Page:16181] 
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First with some degree of heavy heart has to say that it cannot support the Minimum Wage and Remuneration Amendment Bill. When the bill came before this House initially and then to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee it was dramatically flawed—it was hopelessly flawed I would suggest. It would have embraced the painter who worked 20 hours or put in a contract for 20 hours painting a house. If it rained and it took 40 hours because of rain or something else that reduced the hourly rate and then the person who engaged the painter would have had to make up the contract to the minimum wage. That is how the bill came to the House initially. I have to say to Sue Bradford’s assertion that New Zealand First has given up that I think Darien Fenton will tell this House if she is truthful that nobody worked harder than the New Zealand First member on the select committee to get this into an acceptable shape. 
The bill is so complicated now that it is still not acceptable. Let me try to explain why. Basically the bill covers 14 occupations. Half of them are occupations where the individuals are just selling their labour like pamphlet deliverers. But there are four occupations that would include a significant capital cost in the contracted price. Truck drivers have to have a truck—that is included in the price they will put up to the principal. A courier driver has to have a van. It could be argued that there are a couple of other occupations—namely fast-food delivery services where the guy might have a motorbike or a car and it could well be that a musician has to have an electronic organ or what have you—where all capital costs are encompassed in the price. In other words this bill covers a mixture of people who are just selling or offering their labour and people who are offering their labour plus a significant piece of capital equipment. 
Let us talk about the truck driver. In this day and age when petrol and interest rates are going up the principal who has engaged this driver to conduct deliveries around town will say: “Right it will cost X dollars per tonne to deliver that.” Fuel goes up the lease of the van goes up or the driver might change his or her van so that the cost structure is quite different. So the driver has to go to the principal and say that he or she is not making the minimum wage per hour. The principal is then forced into a position of assessing if he or she is doing his job correctly how that trucking company is working financially. But the reason for engaging the trucking company on a cost per tonne basis in the first place is to avoid getting into that sort of detail. Mixing these sorts of occupations together creates confusion. The bill assuming the member promoting it Darien Fenton has the numbers to pass it will create a lot of difficulties for some businesses. It will compel them to do homework on an activity that they have tried to buy themselves out of or to engage contractors for so that they are not directly involved. That is why New Zealand First is not supporting the bill. 
Yesterday morning I was given on behalf of New Zealand First a Supplementary Order Paper that amends the bill. That was just before I went into caucus. I was asked to look at it and get the view of the caucus by 5 o’clock last night. We had a full caucus agenda. I was lucky. I pleaded with my colleagues to give it some consideration. But just dropping that on us at such a late time is really beyond belief. Here is the Supplementary Order Paper: it is almost as thick as the bill; it is thicker than the initial bill. To digest this in a matter of minutes to explain it to caucus and to get our members to review the position is not on. I would suggest to the member promoting the bill that this is not acting in good faith. She could have given me this Supplementary Order Paper had she been inclined to do so weeks ago or she could have as she suggested to me last night postponed this bill until New Zealand First was fully briefed. I put to her that my caucus told me to get a thorough briefing from the member and then we would consider it in more detail. But no the member pushed ahead and New Zealand First is not in a position at all to change its mind on the issue. 
This bill is dealing with occupations that are not really compatible. How can one compare the engagement of a young person to deliver pamphlets with a truck driver who is delivering tonnes of cargo around an area? How can one compare that? It is very very difficult and I do not know how one can do that in a reasonable way. How can one compare a young guy who can deliver pamphlets—100-plus an hour—with an older guy who goes around talks to his neighbours and delivers 20 an hour? I heard the Hon Mark Gosche try to explain that but I have to say that if the older guy gets 12 bucks for delivering 50 pamphlets an hour at a slow rate and the young guy is delivering 300 400 or 500 an hour is the young guy not going to say sooner or later that on a per pamphlet basis he is entitled to a good bit more. The next person will say: “Under precedence this guy is getting X cents a pamphlet and this guy is making a dollar a pamphlet.” It is not the way to do things. 
Contracting was actually set up to avoid the complications of employment. That is not an excuse for not paying a reasonable rate and New Zealand First would support any move to ensure that the contractor got a fair return on his or her efforts. We do not want people here in this country getting less than the minimum wage—certainly if they are over the age where they are entitled to that wage—that is not the aim of the game at all. But we want legislation that is workable that is easily understood that is straightforward to apply and that generally works without having industrial disputes or involving lawyers every 10 minutes. 
I can say with sincerity—and I am sure that the member who has this bill knows this—that New Zealand First has looked at this bill inside out and upside down umpteen times. We have spoken to union officials we have spoken to the member herself on umpteen occasions and she has spoken not only to me but to my colleagues. I do not know of anybody who has shown any concern about this bill—actually there was one; a lady sent me an email the other day and I have not been able to speak to her. If anybody has sent us communications of concern in respect of this bill we have sat down and spoken with him or her and addressed those concerns. We have put the issues as I have briefly outlined them tonight to these individuals and nobody has given us a satisfactory answer. I am sad if the situation is that people are earning less than the minimum wage—I genuinely am and my colleagues share that concern—but this bill is not the solution. I say that on behalf of my colleagues. Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. 
Sitting suspended from 5.58 p.m. to 7 p.m.