Financial Review Debate — Department of Labour

I will focus particularly on a couple of key issues in the financial review of the Department of Labour. I will look at the whole area of productive employment relations, and I will look at the area of skills. I hope that during the course of this debate perhaps the Minister of Labour, Kate Wilkinson, will comment on these matters—I certainly hope so.

One of the stated objectives of this Government is to reduce the gap between people’s incomes in Australia and New Zealand by 2025. One of the much talked about ways that we are to do this is by improving productivity. In my view, productive employment relations are absolutely fundamental to doing that. What do we mean by productive employment relations? In my book, it is about getting standards across industries. It is about having economic development that involves the workforce. It is about a recognition of the need to lift the quality of our workplaces. That includes the wage rates, the work conditions, and the quality of interaction within our workplaces—that is what I call productive employment relations. Unfortunately, I believe that this Government sees workers and their rights as costs that need to be reduced. I say that with some sadness really, but when I think about the Prime Minister’s statement, I remember that he talked about the need for better regulation and then went on to talk about labour laws imposing excessive costs on this country and holding us back in taking advantage of opportunities to create jobs.

When we look at what has been going on in the labour portfolio and look at the time line of the erosion of worker’s rights, we can see a pattern. One of the first things that this Government did was to bring in the 90-day “no rights at work” provision, so workers could not challenge unfair practices by their employers for the first 3 months. That was followed closely by the minimum wage increase in 2009 of 50c an hour, although I do recall that the Minister of Labour was opposed to that. She was much keener on having a zero percent increase, but I think she succumbed to what was understood to be the view of the population of New Zealand, which was that perhaps that would not be very fair. I think we are starting to see an increasing clamour for a real lift to the minimum wage. There is a strong move now to see the minimum wage lifted to something more like $15 an hour. I think that would be a good step towards moving to close the income gap between Australia and New Zealand. But certainly lifting the minimum wage by 50c an hour in 2009 was not quite there.

Then we saw the pay and employment equity unit disestablished and a number of pay equity reviews cancelled. That was done ignoring the fact that those were important mechanisms to lift the wages of, predominantly, women in industries where their very important work is undervalued. So that was another step in the erosion of worker’s rights. It was followed by the introduction in October 2009 of the Employment Relations (Rest Breaks and Meal Breaks) Amendment Bill. This bill will be one that members on the Labour side of the Chamber will be voting against. It will deny vulnerable workers basic rights to minimum breaks during their working day and is yet another backward step. So much for productive employment relations! Then there will be the changes to the Holidays Act, which will get rid of people automatically having 4 weeks’ annual leave. Again, that is another step in the wrong direction. This year we have seen the announcement of the very significant 25c an hour lift in the minimum wage, which takes it to the grand sum of $12.75 per hour. Of course, there are some members in this Chamber who would like to see that reduced—members like Roger Douglas from the ACT Party. The previous National Party leader, Don Brash, felt that was part of his productivity prescription to ensure that we closed the gap between Australia and New Zealand. I think those people have it all wrong.

I will go on to look at the issue of skills. But just before I go off the topic of Don Brash’s task force, I note that in the financial review of the Department of Labour we did talk about that. It was fair to say that it was acknowledged by the departmental officials that they were not once consulted on this matter.

I want to follow on from the speech made by Carol Beaumont, who is an effective member of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. I am disappointed that the Labour Party gave her the job of trying to say nothing for 5 minutes. The Labour Party is a party that has been based on labour relations. That is its core support—the unions are its support base. There was nothing in that previous speech, and National has done nothing to compromise workers’ rights in New Zealand over the last year and a half. In fact, National has stood up for workers and delivered for them when Labour did not.

💬 Tim Macindoe: 75c.

As Mr Macindoe, that great member from Hamilton West said, 75c was added by the National Government, during a recession, to the minimum wage. Labour was nowhere to be seen in terms of looking after workers during the 9 years it was in Government. That is sad. It is sad when the Labour Party goes for its core constituency and cannot even make any arguments that would be of consequence to the punters and the voters out there.

The Labour Party knows that the Government has delivered as much as can be given in these economic times. The Labour Party says that, according to National, workers are costs that need to be reduced—that is its perception of National’s view, but it is simply not the case. New Zealanders and the National Government value the work that all New Zealanders do. We want to see a stronger country where workers across the board get a fair return for their day’s work, and we will deliver that to them through measures like tax cuts, through measures in relation to the working environment, and by keeping their jobs. We will not have a situation where we will compromise workers’ employment for political expediency.

National wants to see New Zealanders keep their jobs, and we want to see New Zealand develop so that we can pay workers what they deserve and give them the opportunities they seek in life. It is a shame that Labour members cannot find anything to argue in terms of labour relations from their point of view. They know that we have delivered for the workers better than the previous Labour Government did in 9 years.

Report noted.

Members, we are getting close to the end of the time for this debate. The situation, as I understand it, is that the Labour Party has exhausted its calls. My advice from the Government whip is that members now wish to debate the report on the Ministry of Māori Development.

Ministry of Māori Development (Te Puni Kōkiri)