Patterson MarkMARK PATTERSON (NZ First): It's my pleasure to rise and speak on this Estimate debate on behalf of New Zealand First and I too would like to address the Vote Labour Market presentation. But I would like to set the record straight for that previous speaker Scott Simpson. I would actually commend Minister Lees-Galloway on his strong grasp of his portfolio and the quality of his presentation to the Education and Workforce Committee. And what a fascinating space this is. This Employment Relations Amendment Bill that we have currently before the House is a major piece of legislation. It has ramifications that are important across the economy and it affects almost every household in the country and it's absolutely imperative that we land this in the right place.New Zealand First find ourselves absolutely in the middle of this debate. We are a centrist party. We do have a centrist policy platform and we understand the need to balance employer and employee relationships. In fact the Rt Hon Winston Peters our Acting Prime Minister 25 years ago almost to the day split away from the National Party in his disbelief in their following the fourth Labour Government's neoliberal economic experiment and the trickle-down theory that the Leader of the Opposition still appears to believe in.Of course he's been right and so many things he said over the years have played out. Of course we see that the top 10 percent now own a hugely disproportionate part of the wealth and obscenely the top 0.5 percent own a quite high proportion of that as well. Things that we used to take for granted like homeownership are now something of a luxury to many and only a pipedream to far too many.We as a coalition Government aspire to First World wages and working conditions and New Zealand First has been instrumental in a first step in that policy platform pushing and being successful and winning a $20 minimum wage by 2020. We want to go further with that of course. We want to have a living wage being the norm to reinstate the egalitarian society of which we were once so proud. So we absolutely support the intent of the Minister and the coalition Government in advancing the interests of working people where a fair day's work has the dignity of a fair day's pay.But New Zealand First also recognise the importance of employers. Employers are not just Fonterra or Fletcher's; they could be a book store in Gore a pub in Whakatāne or indeed a farmer in Lawrence. And if anyone actually knows of a farm manager could you come and see me later on—I'm hiring. We absolutely understand that those people risk their own capital and we're pleased to see the Minister informed us of the Tax Working Group's proposals to look at tax breaks for small and medium sized enterprises to offset some of the $20 minimum wage and what that may be doing to the bottom line of some of our smaller businesses. But we have been instrumental in retaining the right for the 90-day trial for businesses with under 20 employees which is actually 97 percent of businesses. We do think that it is a mechanism that allows employers to take a punt on those that may be marginalised in society.We do note also that we need to retain flexibility. This is a dynamic time. Technology is changing and lots of disruptive things are coming along so we need to have flexibility within our employment relations. Indeed the Labour Party's own Future of Work work that they did in the previous Parliament demonstrated that.So we are absolutely in the middle of this debate. As I say we realise that we need some balance in this—that the pendulum has swung too far one way. We want to bring it back but not at the expense of negating employment opportunities. Of course we need to do much more if we're going to lift our productivity. We need to add value to our primary exports. We've done things like the R & D tax credits and of course our Provincial Growth Fund—things that will build our economy so it does support higher wages. But we do commend the Minister on his performance and we support the intent of what he's trying to do. We do look forward to working with him to land this legislation in a great place.