Fair Pay Agreements Act Repeal Bill

I move, That the Fair Pay Agreements Act Repeal Bill be now read a second time.

The Fair Pay Agreements Act Repeal Bill repeals the Fair Pay Agreements Act that was brought to this House by the previous Government. We do not believe that that bill would have improved workers’ outcomes or business outcomes in our economy in New Zealand.

We’ve spoken at length in the first reading about what the effect of those laws would be, but I wanted to take the time and the opportunity to express what we heard when the fair pay agreements legislation went through the House under the previous Government, some very clear submissions that happened at the time. There were quite a few people who spoke about the effect that that law would have on businesses and on workers in our economy and this is why we are repealing the bill. The first one I’d like to note was the Federated Farmers of New Zealand. They said, “Some business owners will be forced to downsize or simplify their business to avoid employing people, or some will close the doors entirely.” That would be an effect of the Fair Pay Agreements Act.

Horticulture New Zealand, when they talked about the effect, talked about the effect on the cost of living for New Zealanders. They said, “Fair pay agreements will result in additional costs and organisational compliance for growers. Growers cannot continue to absorb increased costs. If growers stop producing a variety of fruits and vegetables in New Zealand, or at worst have to close their businesses, this will result in less local choice and diversity of produce for consumers. An increased price of kai for Kiwis—clearly, clearly a terrible outcome.”

There was a quote from a small family-owned promotions company which talked about how this would bring other people into the relationships between an employer and an employee. And they’ve said, “I have a very transparent and good relationship with our team and see any collective agreement that applies to our business will only start alienating my relationship with our small team. Having to negotiate an employment agreement via an unrelated third party may work in a large organisation, but certainly not in most small businesses.”

There was a struggling business in the hospitality sector that said, “Our industry is already paying more. Market conditions resulting from labour shortages have already driven hospitality industry wages up beyond what many businesses can afford. Many small hospitality businesses have already closed or are operating reduced days and hours only, and they simply can’t pay more. The Fair Pay Agreements Act 2022 would represent further change that would go too far, too fast, with damaging consequences.”

I note also from the New Zealand Shipping Federation that they said, “New Zealand workers must have the right to associate with a trade union where they wish to do so. But the right to freely associate with others includes the right not to associate where an individual does not wish to. This bill has the effect of utilising the powers of the State to compel people who have, in many cases, consciously and explicitly chosen not to associate with a trade union or an employers association, to have a trade union or employers association represent them and their interests without their agreement.”

These are clear examples of why this Government is repealing the Fair Pay Agreements Act. We do not believe that all employees and all employers within scope should be forced into an agreement where it doesn’t work for the worker and it doesn’t work for the business. We need a flexible labour market that focuses on productivity growth, that focuses on reducing regulation, and focuses on reducing inflation so that everybody can have more food on their table for themselves and their families but where businesses have the confidence to flourish and employ more, and where business owners have more money to pay their staff more. This Fair Pay Agreements Act would not have done that. It would have led to worse outcomes.

We have a clear mandate from the voters for this law to be repealed. We campaigned clearly. It was in the coalition agreement. It is part of our 100-day plan. It will make a better, more flexible labour market to return to what we had before the Fair Pay Agreements Act came into force. So, therefore, I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to speak about something I am very passionate about, although it’s absolutely not a pleasure to be speaking on the repeal bill for the Fair Pay Agreements Act that was brought in by the last Government.

I’m quite surprised, listening to the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety’s speech—and I know she’s a new Minister, and maybe she doesn’t have her full staff on board yet, but I actually participated in the select committee process, and we received 1,700 submissions. The majority of those submissions were in favour, as I recall, of the amendments. I can also read out the submissions of those in support of the legislation that we did indeed pass, but I don’t think that proves the Minister’s point. I think the Minister needs to actually engage with the substance of what she is repealing, because now, with this longer call, I have the time to go through what fair pay agreements actually do.

Fair pay agreements are a form of industry-level bargaining. They’re common across the world, in countries that we would like to compare ourselves to: in Germany, in France, in Italy, in Australia. They are common arrangements in these countries. These types of agreement create a floor and not a ceiling in relation to terms and conditions. If employers want to offer something above what is in the fair pay agreement, there is absolutely nothing preventing them from doing that. They just create minimum standards, which we are very used to in New Zealand—we have lots of minimum standards that apply to workers. We have the minimum wage, we have minimum holidays, we have parental leave, we have sick leave—those kinds of things.

The thing that is different—and beneficial—about fair pay agreements is that they allow employers and workers to come together, whether they’re in a union or not, and discuss what works best for the industry—what they consider to be fair terms and conditions that will allow them to have secure work, secure pay, and be able to see a career moving forward. That is how they work. It is not a scary thing. It is something that actually allows New Zealand to move forward and allows us to become a high-wage, productive economy—which I actually think most people, on both sides of the House, would like to see New Zealand become.

That is what fair pay agreements are, and my colleague Willie Jackson aptly referred to Jim Bolger “coming right”, and I just thought it would be apt to refer to the work that the Rt Hon Jim Bolger did actually do in relation to fair pay agreements. He chaired the working group that set the groundwork up for the Fair Pay Agreements Bill that was passed by our Government. And I quote from the Rt Hon Jim Bolger. He said, “We believe we have designed a Fair Pay Agreements system which will be most useful in sectors or occupations where competition is driving a ‘race to the bottom’ in terms of wages and conditions. Fair Pay Agreements could also be useful where workers and employers identify scope to improve outcomes across a sector or occupation. In particular, I consider that workers and employers will need to work together to find innovative ways to lift productivity.” So someone who was in favour of what we introduced was the Rt Hon Jim Bolger, and I respect and thank Jim Bolger for his work. It’s disappointing to see it repealed like this.

The other thing that I wanted to touch on are the people who will actually be affected by this repeal of the Fair Pay Agreements Act. It’s not us in the Labour Party; it’s not the unions that perhaps don’t find favour with the other side of the House. The people on this side of the House, as has been mentioned, and unions, have good terms and conditions. They’re unlikely to be covered by a fair pay agreement. The people that this is really hurting are not, in the majority, union members; they’re everyday New Zealanders who work in vulnerable industries who need fair pay. They are, as in the Minister’s own advice that she received in the regulatory impact statement, more likely to be Māori, they’re more likely to be Pasifika, they’re more likely to be women, and they’re more likely to be young people. These are the people that removing fair pay agreements is actually hurting. It’s not us; it’s New Zealanders.

I just wanted to refer back to the speech I gave on the first reading of the Fair Pay Agreements Bill, when I quoted in the House at that time Morris, a bus driver I spoke to. He said, “Flat rates just mean drivers work more and more hours to make ends meet. They’re on split shifts. They can be doing 14 hours a day, but not getting paid for these hours. It leaves people with no time for their families and it creates fatigue.” Morris was speaking in favour of fair pay agreements, which he hoped would revolutionise the work of bus drivers. I know that this Government is intent on repealing this legislation, but can I just put a plea out for these workers: no one deserves to be working 14-hour days and not getting paid for all those hours on split shifts. No one deserves to work in a job in New Zealand where they can’t see their families or can’t make enough to live on. These are serious issues that we need to address, so we must actually be brave enough to look at the way we work in New Zealand.

The other person I wanted to mention featured on the cover of The Post, yesterday I think it was. This is Rosey; she’s a security guard. She actually came along—she’s a real person. To be honest, she’s very brave to be speaking out as a security guard and sharing her story. She said, in the paper, “Security guards often don’t receive the proper training for things like health and safety, and de-escalation. FPAs would help security guards get the training and upskilling they need to keep themselves and others safe. It’s a stressful job, and we deserve to feel valued in the work we do.”

One of the things that is interesting about being in this House is when we have the adjournment debate, and I’m sure we’ll see this again when we adjourn for this year. One of the groups of people we always want to thank are our security guards and our cleaners. They do incredible work here at Parliament, and a lot of their work isn’t valued. It is heart-breaking to be, on the one hand, thanking them in our words, thanking them for the service that they do and that they provide, and, on the other hand, passing laws in this House—with our actions—and showing that this Parliament does not value them. Because that is what this Government is doing.

The other things that I wanted to cover, in relation to fair pay agreements—and we will have a decent amount of time to, I hope, discuss this in the committee of the whole House stage as well—are some other issues that have arisen in our scrutiny of this legislation that has been proposed by the Government. We’ve seen, perhaps in their haste to put out a press release saying they’ve achieved their 100-day goals, the drafting of their legislation was amiss in some instances, and I’m foreshadowing that we’ll be putting some Amendment Papers—as they’re now called—into the committee of the whole House stage to seek to address those.

The other thing that I wanted to mention was some of the other concerns that have been raised during the very fast passage of this piece of legislation through the House. New Zealand has, as all in this House will be aware, an EU free-trade agreement. One of the conditions of that EU free-trade agreement is that countries don’t deregulate their labour laws in order to give themselves a competitive advantage, and I understand a complaint has been raised to that nature. So I would just caution members on the other side of the House that, when they do seek to put legislation through urgency, sometimes issues like this can arise, which may be unintentional but can have serious implications for our trade relationships and serious implications for the very important trade deals that we have entered into.

The other thing I wanted to raise is that there is an issue with some of the explanation that has been happening around whether this will actually impact workers. Well, we know that this would have created fairer pay and conditions for workers, and therefore they are impacted. But secondly to that, we know that there is at least one application in the Employment Relations Authority for fixing the terms of a fair pay agreement. Now, obviously, that’s before the authority; it’s not for us to comment on how that will progress, as is customary in this House. However, I think we can comment to say that that particular group will be impacted by this decision. And I note in the departmental disclosure statement which was released with this bill that there was also an issue raised in relation to that under the Legislation Act 2021, which actually doesn’t allow existing rights to be repealed if they’re existing at the time of the repeal—so some interesting issues for the Government to have to address in this piece of legislation that they have moved through very, very quickly.

In conclusion, I look forward to the committee stage, when we can look through the legislation in detail, but I just wanted to say that in the Labour Party we will always stand up for working people, and this is not the end of this fight. We’ll be back, and fair pay agreements will be too.

It’s a sad day to stand up and take a call on the second reading of the Fair Pay Agreements Act Repeal Bill, shepherded by a Government that seems to want to make our lowest-income workers have a terrible time ahead of Christmas; a Government that is full of platitudes, happy to celebrate our essential workers when it was convenient and turn their back on them and turn the clock back in time as soon as they take the reins of power.

As we’ve gone through the passage of the debate and in this bill, it’s been really clear that this bill was not centred on the wellbeing of workers; it was centred on ideology. I heard, through the debate, members of the opposite side yell out “misinformation” when the member from the Labour Party Camilla Belich was speaking, and it’s quite the call to be making when the whole campaign against fair pay agreements was based on misinformation. So to now turn around and call the members speaking on the facts on why fair pay agreements would have been good “misinformation” is a slap on the face to the workers, the union campaigners, and the businesses who actually support paying those workers a good wage, because those businesses understand that if you’re running a business model that cannot afford to pay workers a living wage, that business should not have a right to exist. If your premise of running a business relies on the exploitation of workers, then you’re not running a business.

Carl Bates: Have you run a business before?

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: It’s interesting that I’m once again getting shouts from the other side of the House, talking about whether we’ve even run a business. I then challenge those members: have you been a cleaner? Have you worked in hospitality? Have you worked in any of those industries? If so, next time those members walk into the supermarket, next time those members walk into the cafe, next time those members thank the cleaners, they need to remind themselves they were the members who voted against improving the pay and the conditions of those very same workers they claim to represent. They need to remember that they have turned their backs on those workers as soon as they entered the halls of power.

Fair pay agreements would have set a minimum standard for those workers. It is about pay, but it is also far more than just about pay. It’s about minimum base wage rates. It’s about overtime rates when they apply. It’s about penalty rates. It’s about health and safety. In a country that has a terrible record when it comes to health and safety standards for our workers, repealing a key piece of legislation that would have improved the safety of our workers is a stain in this Government’s track record and their commitment to keep our workers safe.

I used to work in hospitality—something that quite a lot of right-wingers seem to take issue about, as if it wasn’t real-life experience. But, actually, this bill affects the people who I used to work with. Having worked at a cinema that had some of the lowest wages for a profession such as a projectionist, when other cinemas offered different conditions, it was really clear to me, when fair pay agreements were brought up, the benefits that it would have had for those friends of mine who were still working in the industry to have the certainty that there was going to be a minimum rate for those workers. I had the pleasure of talking to those workers when I went on Dominion Road with people from Unite Union to hand out letters notifying people of what we call a notification of bargaining; of the process of starting that fair pay agreement. It was palatable, the curiosity and the excitement from workers about what could fair pay agreements have delivered for them.

Workers who I’ve talked to on Dominion Road immediately understood that there’s no floor, there’s no standards set across the hospitality scene. For those politicians, for those opponents of fair pay agreements: next time they go out to their favourite eatery in the city, they need to remember those workers who they took that opportunity to have better working conditions and safety standards away from them.

It was also really clear of the voices that were brought to the halls of power—to the forecourt here in Parliament—and for other pickets across the country, that many workers are having to take multiple jobs simply to make ends meet. What this piece of legislation was aiming to achieve was to prevent workers having to work shifts back-to-back, to have to give up time to be with their families, to sacrifice the opportunity of being able to study alongside working just to be able to survive.

I’ve heard, throughout the debate, that the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety—responsible for this bill—and those members in support of this bill think that repealing it will give greater flexibility for employers. But at no point have they been able to produce evidence of the outcomes that the repeal will have when it comes to the material reality of those workers. They’ve spoken about the impact it will have on employers, but their trickle-down economics, their trickle-down beliefs that those gains for employers will be passed down to workers, is nothing but a myth.

I notice, in the paper that we’ve been presented, that there were options presented to the Minister about alternatives to just simply scrapping it—perhaps looking at other options—and it’s interesting that when presented with multiple options to perhaps reach a compromise on what they had campaigned on and the wellbeing of our workers, the choice that was still nonetheless pursued was to take us back. When they talk about the so-called evidence on this bill, as has been canvassed by other members, the evidence actually shows the contrary. Overseas evidence shows that fair pay agreements would have benefited—as it has our counterparts overseas—by lifting their wages, lifting their conditions, and for parties that campaign on the issue of our workers leaving to Australia, they need to realise that our workers are leaving to countries that have better standards for those workers. Who are we to then demand that those workers stay in a country that is literally worsening the conditions for those workers?

Again, I point out the fact that this Government had the opportunity to land somewhere that wasn’t back to zero—to not turn the clock so far back—and they still chose to do it with no evidence, with not even wanting to have a proper regulatory impact statement in front of them to be able to hold to their arguments against the advice from people who actually know better than the Minister; people who are connected, who have the expertise and the training. Because the Minister, while she may have claimed that she has met with the with the union sector, she has not been able to substantiate the details of those conversations to back up her arguments on why this piece of legislation and repealing fair pay agreements is a good thing.

Finally, I want to commend, too, the many workers who—despite there not being a select committee submission process—have put their livelihoods, their stories on the line to make the case on why fair pay agreements are a thing to be protected. Because, normally, we would have given them the chance to come to the halls of power, to a House that belongs to them, to explain to us why fair pay agreements should have been protected. Those people who are against it—yeah, they would have been given the chance too. But we’ve bypassed that process, on the premise of ideology. We could have given people the chance to come and submit; to actually test us—test us on the grounds that each of us campaigned on: on workers’ issues—but those workers don’t have that opportunity.

I also want to mihi to Rosey, who was acknowledged in the previous speech. I had the pleasure of campaigning with her on issues around public housing. It says a lot that the workers who have been very visible in the media are the same workers who, the Minister has been advised, will be most impacted. It has been the young workers, the women, the Māori workers, Pasifika workers, young workers who have come out and spoken as to why fair pay agreements are good.

If the advice that the Minister received is not good enough, she may want to turn her face from the ivory tower to the streets to listen to the experiences of those workers. If she does not want a regulatory impact statement to test her own views against the advice from people who know better than her, she could have turned her face to the streets and spoken to those workers that she will encounter in cafes and the supermarket, and next time she goes to a mall and sees security guards.

So, as I finish this call, I want to ask those members opposite to me to speak to those workers, to look at them in the eye, and remind them this Christmas of what they took away from them. Kia ora.

I’m offended that the Hon Willie Jackson and members opposite suggest that we don’t care about bus drivers. Unlike members opposite, who operate in theories and ideals, I have successfully employed and retained over 100 staff, many of whom were bus drivers. My husband has been a bus driver. My father has been a bus driver. My grandfather has been a bus driver. Many of my family and friends are bus drivers, and to intimate that we in the National Party do not care about bus drivers is incorrect.

In fact, like my friend James Meager—

Order! Order! Just a moment—interjections are fine, but there’s too much shouting.

KATIE NIMON: —said, the members opposite do not own workers, and, for that matter, neither do their unions. Staff across the country are worried about division that the fair pay agreement (FPA) will bring. There is no question. As I mentioned earlier, I have successfully employed and retained hundreds of employees, none of which was done through an FPA. So, in the second reading of this bill, I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to continue to support this Fair Pay Agreements Act Repeal Bill.

All I’m hearing from the other side of the House is catastrophising. I mean, this bill hasn’t even kicked in yet, this mechanism. It’s not as though we’re tearing up a workers’ utopia. This is a bill that hasn’t even taken effect yet. So we’re just getting rid of it before it takes effect and cripples the flexibility in our labour market. And I will not be lectured, or New Zealand First will not be lectured, by the Labour Party. We have a track record in three consecutive coalitions that we’ve been involved in; having a rise to the minimum wage has been part of that. Extraordinarily, in 2017, we had to bring them kicking and screaming to the table to do that.

Camilla Belich actually made the actually obvious point that union members probably wouldn’t be affected by this because they collectively bargain anyway. So where is the problem? If that is what people want to do, they have a solution there already. And, of course, we totally respect—as I said earlier—that people that risk their own capital to provide jobs and to grow the economy need the flexibility to be able to do that.

Last time we were in Government with Labour, and they tried to bring this forward, our real concern about this and why we did pull the handbrake on this was particularly around the regional employers. There’s different cost structures in different regions of New Zealand. It’s a different cost of living in Auckland than it might be in Balclutha. So the complexity of bringing these things together is a lot more challenging than the members opposite would make out. But it is typical of them and their one-size-fits-all approach to almost everything.

New Zealand First will support this bill in the second reading. Thank you.

This is a split call. I call the Hon Marama Davidson—five minutes, thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Be honest. Be honest, this Government—the National Party, New Zealand First, ACT—be honest about what is actually driving this legislation to remove rights for workers. Be honest about who your most wealthy and collective donors were and what their purposes are to get you into Government. Urgency; rushing the repeal, the wind-back of workers’ wellbeing and lives is what you are doing in urgency. You’re not even whispering about it; you’re doing it out loud. Be upfront. Just say—just say you don’t care about workers.

Hon Simeon Brown: Point of order.

Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON: Just say that, and then we can at least be clear about what your rationale, and your reasonings, and your purpose has always been and will always be. And no, it does not matter—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Point of order—excuse me for a moment. Point of order, the Hon Simeon Brown.

Hon Simeon Brown: The member started her speech making assertions about the Government’s reasons why this bill was being progressed—trying to assert it to do with donors and other things, and I don’t think that’s within the Standing Orders.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yeah, I think it’s probably not helpful to refer to donors, and I’m sorry, I was a bit distracted at that point; I was just clarifying something over here. So perhaps we’ll avoid talking about donors in the future.

Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON: Speaking to the point of order, could I have some clarity—genuine guidance—about why it isn’t OK in this House of Representatives to refer to who are the drivers and the owners of political parties in their laws.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: [Takes advice] Thank you. So what I’m going to ask speakers to do is to stay away from those. We are going to follow up with some Speakers’ directions, but carry on with your speech for now and avoid going there, please.

Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON: I appreciate that, and I will even refine my language: be clear. Be clear about what is actually driving the rationale behind this legislation, just before Christmas—just before Christmas—to repeal and wind back some of the best and most improved progress in workers’ rights that this country would have seen in decades, to address systemic issues. Yes, we have made some progress because of collective power of bargaining on workers’ rights in this country, yes. But there remain some deep, systemic issues that have impacted in the areas of employment and industry that most disproportionately are represented by Māori, by Pacific people, by women, by young people, and by people with a disability in those areas and trades specifically that have, for decades and far too long, exploited those workers who are at most risk and are most vulnerable to being exploited—not just with lower pay but also with hours that are mucky and that impact on their other responsibilities in the rest of their lives, with learning and development conditions and training so that they can actually build upon their work, no matter what that work is—that have been impacted on by a lack of decision making and input from workers, including their ability to be safe and well in their workplace. That is what this Government and all of those political parties are doing, in a rush, right before Christmas.

So, yes, I do stand behind my ask to be clear. Be clear about what your motivations are. Do not try and hide behind and pretend that this is about the wellbeing of workers when the evidence—decades of evidence of systemic problems and failure with the very workers from communities who have been getting hammered for so very long; for too long—don’t try and pretend that this legislation is any attempt to uphold their dignity, their rights, and their mana. That’s all I ask: be clear. Be clear about what your motivations are, because we sure as heck are.

Were the members opposite out there in front of Parliament today, meeting with and hearing from workers? OK, if you have some weird ideology against collective strength, such as unions, all right, that’s fine—you can remain with that ideology, sure. But have you sat down with workers now, today, out there on the steps: the supermarket workers, the people who look after our mokopuna, the people who drive our buses, the people who clean our places of work, our places of living? And no, OK—it doesn’t even matter that I am from a family of generations of cleaners and bus drivers and retail workers and hospitality workers, that I myself have done hospitality—I’m just watching the clock—and cleaning, that both of my parents were bus drivers, that my grandmother worked in a cafe and also did cleaning. OK, that shouldn’t matter. What does matter is that we all here today, wherever we’ve come from, have a responsibility to honour and uphold the mana of those who do not have large moneyed connections to organisations to make these laws happen fast, who do not have power and resource, who have for far too long—

Hon Simeon Brown: Point of order.

Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON: Oh, come on.

Hon Simeon Brown: I’ll just draw your attention—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yeah, the member’s raised a point of order. I’ve actually got some information, in front of me, around the issue that was—is it the same point of order?

Hon Simeon Brown: Well, I mean, she just referred to—I mean, again made the same assertion of improper motives.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you. So the member has been asked not to do that. I think it’s probably appropriate, actually, that I read out the particular Speakers’ ruling now, and I refer to, under “Unparliamentary language”, 55/5: “(1) It is in order to say that the Government is influenced, but it is not in order to say that in … carrying out of its administrative and governmental duties, apart from the formulation of its policy before it came to the House, the Government is dictated to by an outside body.” And “(2) It is out of order to suggest that the Government or any member is subject to outside domination,”. So I’d just ask the member to be cognisant of that in future. Thank you.

Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON: Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I firstly ask, could I have, I think, the 15 seconds back that I lost in the point of order—20 seconds?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: You can have your 15 seconds.

Hon Willie Jackson: Make it 30.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: 15.

Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON: Thank you, Madam Speaker, I will wind up my speech. I appreciate that guidance, genuinely. I hope that we can talk about, though, who the workers have to champion their causes, rather than talking about who political parties have to champion their causes. And who the workers have to champion their causes: it should be all of us in this House of—apparent—Representatives, but it will definitely be the Greens. Thank you.

Just before I take the next speaker, can I ask—does Te Pāti Māori intend to have your five-minute call?

Tākuta Ferris: Āe.

So I call Tākuta Ferris.

E te Pīka, tēnā rā koe. I rise on behalf of Te Pāti Māori to speak to the second reading of the Fair Pay Agreements Act Repeal Bill. We will be strongly opposing this bill, pau te kaha [until all our strength is expended].

Let me start by saying, as Emeritus Professor of Accounting Whatarangi Winiata consistently said, Māori have long been the shock absorber of the New Zealand economy. Last hired, first fired—this bill will compound this effect. Te Pāti Māori policy is clear that we support ensuring the ability of multi-employer collective bargaining, and collective bargaining for contractors. 30 years ago, the Employment Contracts Act 1991 removed sector-wide bargaining from the industrial relations system. According to unionist and workers’ rights advocate Annie Newman, this implemented one of the most radical, individualised employment relations systems in the world.

Most developed economies have some form of sector-wide bargaining. Australia’s use of fair pay agreements is one of the reasons they have much higher wages than Aotearoa. For far too long, our people have been treated as second-class citizens in the New Zealand job market—used and abused, working in tough and often inhumane conditions, keeping this country’s economy running. The median Māori hourly wage is $24.98, compared to $28.01 for our Pākehā counterparts. Low wages impoverish whānau and cause extensive inter-generational harm and trauma. Māori, Pasifika, young people, and whānau hauā are often over-represented in jobs where low pay, job security, health and safety, and upskilling are significant issues, and with low union coverage.

Minimum industry-wide standards provide baselines regardless of whether you are a member of a union or not. Health and safety problems in industries like forestry, farming, trucking, fisheries often kill Māori at work. In this House, we should be making people decisions. In this House, we should be making mokopuna decisions. Mokopuna decisions require lifting the material conditions of all whānau.

In 2022, the Government brought back sector-wide bargaining with the Fair Pay Agreements Act 2022, which provided a framework for bargaining for fair pay agreements, industry-wide or occupation-wide minimum employment terms. The Act also set out that each bargaining side will have obligations to use its best endeavours to represent those within coverage, and to ensure that Māori employees and employers are represented effectively. Every worker and employer has the opportunity to be represented in negotiations and to vote on the agreement itself. Fair pay agreements come into force through a majority ratification of the parties. The reforms did not bring back the controversial elements of the old industrial relations regime, like compulsory unionism. Rather, all workers within affected industries and occupations will see the benefits, not just the union members. The introduction of fair pay agreements in both the private and public sectors would have, over a period of time, significantly lifted wages and employment conditions for workers, particularly low-paid workers, where many whānau Māori are employed.

Te Pāti Māori support the Fair Pay Agreements Act because fair pay agreements would have been one of the most significant policies in lifting the wages of working Māori. We strongly oppose this bill pō te ao, ao te pō. [at all times.]

It takes Aotearoa back by locking in the status quo of our last 30 years—a low-wage, precarious job market. As we head into the Christmas period, people are struggling to put food on the table, to pay their bills, to fill up their cars, and to buy their tamariki presents. Right now, this new Government should be focusing on lifting the incomes of whānau, not exacerbating the hardships of the hard-working Māori families. Instead, it focuses on ramming through legislation under urgency that will keep their wages low, and jobs precarious—legislation that will keep them in insecure work with unfair pay and in dangerous conditions. It’s appalling. Every whānau in Aotearoa should have enough to live well, and be able to spend their time with their whānau, and to work in safe, healthy conditions.

Let me conclude in the words of Dr Ranginui Walker, who said, “I have no time for those in positions of privilege who use their privilege to attack the most vulnerable people in our society”.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, and congratulations on your new role. There’s a lot of talk in this House this afternoon about Christmas, and maybe so given the Christmas parades I’ve been at recently in Hāwera, in Pātea, and in Whanganui. But it’s a falsehood that there’s a massive present being taken away. Indeed, we are giving the present of confidence this Christmas—a confidence in a new 2024. Confidence that there will be a job for that young person wanting someone to take a risk on them and confidence to the employer to take that risk. Confidence to the food market owner in Whanganui who said she would have to close if fair pay agreements went through. And with that closure, the jobs would go with it. To give confidence to employers deciding if they want and will take another risk, and to the young person looking for someone to take a risk on them, I commend this bill to the House.

Well, we’re hearing some nonsense here this afternoon. The only sense I heard was from my whanaunga over there, Doc, who’s made it very, very clear the effect that this bill will have on Māori.

We know, as Māori, how we’re always the last hired and the first fired. That’s an undeniable fact. I look up in the audience there and I see our old friend Naida Glavish.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: “Dame”.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Oh, Dame? She’s my mate, too. Now, she was a wonderful kaimahi, Naida. Wonderful kaimahi, wonderful member of Mana Motuhake. Her only sin was she didn’t follow me into Labour. She was with me in Mana Motuhake, she was one of my members and one of my candidates and stood for me in the north for Mana Motuhake. Well, I can’t remember what she had made of, but we came second. I’m mentioning her because this is the lady—I just want to tell this to the audience—who was one of our great kaimahi. Well, she should be immortalised, Naida, because she was the one who said “kia ora” on the phone.

Hon Member: Kia ora?

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: She’s the “kia ora” lady.

Hon Phil Twyford: Wouldn’t happen now, under this Government.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Well, no.

Hon Member: Oh, what rubbish.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: No, no—National would sack her now. National would sack her. She’d be gone. Gone for all money, our Naida. Maybe then she’d join the Labour Party, I’m not sure. But lovely to have her here today, because when I think about this sort of fair pay bargaining, I take on—

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Willie. [Gestures to gallery]

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: We’ve got all our whānau turning up to tautoko our candidates this afternoon who are going to make a statement in terms of their maiden speeches. But they would all be worried about this, because I was a union official for 18 years—18 years. [Interruption] I know, because none of the losers on the other side were anything apart from working in offices. I was a freezing workers’ president when I was 21 years of age, so I saw firsthand what was happening.

Hon Simeon Brown: What an achievement.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Yeah, well more of an achievement than a mug like yourself. Then, I worked for the cleaners’ union—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! No name calling.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: —I worked for the service workers’ union, and I worked for the Northern Clerical Workers Union, with my uncle Syd Jackson. We saw firsthand what was happening in terms of the damages to workers at community level—Māori workers.

So, in 1991, when Jim Bolger brought in voluntary unionism, we were in shock because it smashed the union movement. So that was in 1991. Jim Bolger brought it in, the architect of voluntary unionism. Who would think in 2018 he would be a champion for the workers? Who would think in 2018 he would be the champion for the workers, for the Greens, for Te Pāti Māori, and for the Labour Party? But not for the useless National Party—a party that has betrayed its history—because Jim Bolger said this: “We believe we have designed a fair pay agreements system which will be most useful in sectors or occupations where competition is driving a ‘race to the bottom’ in terms of wages and conditions. Fair pay agreements could also be useful where workers and employers identify scope to improve outcomes across a sector or occupation. In particular, I consider that workers and employers will need to work together to find innovative ways to lift productivity.”

That’s from the Rt Hon Jim Bolger, the former leader of the useless National Party. He would be ashamed of this useless lot in front of us today, because—

Hon Simeon Brown: Look in the mirror.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: No, he would be ashamed, particularly of Simeon Brown. He’d look at him and he’d think—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, we won’t make personal attacks. Thank you.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: I’m not trying to be personal. But he is useless, I tell you. So he would be ashamed, though. He would be ashamed because this is the former architect of the fair pay agreements. He chaired—

Hon Simeon Brown: Who, Michael Wood?

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: A former Prime Minister, Simeon Brown. Nothing—you’ll never get there. I don’t know how you even got where you are now. But a former Prime Minister and leader of the National Party oversaw the fair bargaining process. That’s how far he came.

Hon Simeon Brown: Oh, there was a guy named Michael Wood too. Where’s he?

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Further than that useless person over there will ever get. He oversaw the fair bargaining process.

Of course, he’s quite a supporter of Māori today, too, unlike this useless lot on the other side. He’s not only talking about fair bargaining agreements; he’s talking about the Treaty, he’s talking about tikanga Māori, he’s talking about the principles—something they’ve forgotten all about. So he would be ashamed of this lot.

What I’m saying to this lot over here is: why are you doing this to our workers and our communities? It’s been really made clear by so many people. I think Marama Davidson was on to something. It’s about the money. It has to be about something. Why is this lot conceding to the money men in our society? It just makes no sense. Why would you attack workers in Māngere, Manurewa, Manukau, West Auckland three weeks before?

Hon Marama Davidson: Profit.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: What is it, Marama Davidson? It must be because of all the money men who are backing them. There is no other reason. The power imbalance in this is sad, and the fear of getting sacked will pressure some workers into not joining a union in case the boss uses that as a reason to sack them. That’s without a doubt.

This shameful piece of legislation will make it more difficult for workers to join a union and have a direct impact on how unions can promote worker interests. It’s shocking that this group has ignored Treasury advice. Don’t want to know about Treasury advice; regulatory impact statements. “Scrutiny, what’s that? Oh, we’ve forgotten all about it. We don’t need a regulatory impact so—doesn’t need it.” Oh no, they don’t need that. They know everything. They are a disgrace. I’m so glad our people are here. It’s good to see you all, because we have a disgraceful Government sitting right in front of you. They don’t care about our communities.

Rima Nakhle: Not true.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: That’s absolutely true. The Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety, Brooke van Velden, has been told that young people, Māori, and Pasifika people will not benefit with the loss of these fair pay agreements (FPAs). But she continues to know what is right for our communities.

Repealing the Fair Pay Agreements Act rips all the good work up. It throws that boost out, just so greedy bosses and greedy National Party supporters can exploit workers. That’s what it’s all about. The Minister claims that FPAs are too blunt. Got the right to sack before 90 days—apparently that’s not too blunt. That’s OK—that’s OK. Her and Mr Seymour—they have all this aroha for the workers, but all they want to do is sack them and throw them out before their 90 days.

They want to dump a whole regime of collective bargaining. Why do they want to do that? Because they want to change the whole workplace. We know this. They want to continue to negotiate with individuals. They’re not interested in collective bargaining. It’s really easy to negotiate with individuals because most individuals don’t have the background, don’t have the history in terms of being able to negotiate for themselves. They don’t. They’re not like Naida Glavish up there, John Tamihere over here—they want to keep John Tamihere out, I think. These people can stand up for themselves—that’s what this is all about. That’s what collective bargaining is all about.

We need unions. We need groups. We need contracts in place so that workers can feel secure—

Hon Simeon Brown: We need businesses.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: —not be nailed and smashed over by creeps like Simeon Brown. It’s just not right.

So I say today to our people who are here: beware of this useless coalition of National, New Zealand First, and ACT. They have no regard for our communities. They can’t even speak for 10 minutes. They can’t even speak for five minutes. They are a disgrace to this nation, and we’re going to get them out in the next two years.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker O’Connor. I’ll just take this opportunity to commend you and congratulate you on retaining your role—your new role.

It’s interesting, listening to the other side of the House. There seems to be this grand assumption that all employers are bad. It’s really, really frustrating. As an employer myself from the Northland electorate, where I’ve employed people for many, many years, guess what—guess what! My manager has been with me for 16 years. Do you think he’d be hanging around if I didn’t do a good job and he wasn’t on a fair pay arrangement—and he damn well is. He didn’t need to be part of a union to achieve it at all, and my other workers, including a number of Māori who have worked for me, still to this day also keep in touch. Believe me, I support this bill, and I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It says a lot about the values of this new Government that one of the very first things they do on taking office is stick the boot into hospo workers, security guards, cleaners, port workers, early childhood teachers, supermarket workers. Fair pay agreements were a long overdue reform to the bargaining system in this country; a set of minimum standards to ensure that some of our hardest-working people could get ahead. We’re talking about people who often work multiple jobs in industries that are casualised. They work longer hours than almost anybody in this building, they are predominantly the young, they are mostly women, and they are mostly Māori and Pasifika workers, and this Government sticks the boot into them in its first couple of weeks in office.

Low pay is at the heart of so many of this country’s problems. Poverty and all of the problems that go with it—the stress, the anxiety, the reduced life expectancy, the poor health. Modern Governments spend all their time cleaning up the messes caused by low pay. But does this Government want to actually do something about it and miss out the middleman and actually pay people more? No, they actually want to drive wages down. They talk about getting people off welfare and into work, right? But when it comes to a law that will actually help people earn more at work and be less reliant on the welfare system, do they want to do something about it? No. They want to get rid of that law. The so-called party of free enterprise; they are happier having the taxpayer subsidise employers to pay starvation wages.

We spend $2 billion a year in this country subsidising rents because people can’t earn enough to pay the rent—multiple billions of dollars every year because employers don’t pay high enough wages. It’s not a socialist idea to want people to earn enough to live and help their kids to survive, so why not allow people to earn enough to live?

I’ve sat here listening to members on that side of the House talk about productivity. Productivity is not about allowing a race to the bottom, driving down wages. This country will never get ahead competing internationally on the basis of low wages of our workers. Italy, France, Germany, Australia—they all have nationwide systems of minimum standards for pay and conditions to stop a race to the bottom. Minister, have you looked at the productivity indicators in Australia and France and Germany and Italy? How are they doing? They’re doing a lot better than us because they believe in driving wages up, not pushing them down. We cannot build a modern economy by trying to compete on the basis of low wages. When wages are as low as they are in New Zealand right now, employers inevitably chose to hire cheap labour instead of investing in the technology, the plant, the capital, that will really drive productivity up. That’s why our productivity is much lower than in Australia, because New Zealand firms don’t invest in technology to improve productivity. They are happier employing cheap labour, and when they don’t need it any more, they send people down the road.

This bill is a hatchet job on quarter of a million of the hardest-working New Zealanders; the bus drivers, the early childhood teachers, supermarket workers, the cleaners, the security guards. We rely on these people; we should allow them to earn enough to live on, to raise a family, and live a decent life. This bill will make New Zealanders poorer, it takes away their opportunity to get ahead. It will actually drive down productivity, and it will take this country backwards.

I rise in support of the repeal of the fair pay agreements. This legislation will hit small businesses after three years of agony and angst. This bill is what is driving us; this bill is about reducing the costs on business—small businesses. The Opposition says it’s all about the rich and powerful. Well, can I remind them that 97 percent of businesses in New Zealand are small businesses—those that employ fewer than 20 people. There are 546,000 of them.

This is a key part of our 100-day action plan. And if they’d gone campaigning in small town New Zealand or in and around small businesses, they would be feeling that in the last three years small businesses have been living off dignity, doggedness.

Hon Phil Twyford: Your constituents will suffer because of this bill.

CAMERON BREWER: Oh, look at this. These are the very people—the people that they purport to represent are the ones that they’ve hurt the most in the last six years, and now they’re trying to retrospectively fix it. They have got survivor’s guilt; they kept their jobs and their voters haven’t, and so they’re now coming back in Opposition and trying to do everything that they didn’t. But it’s too late—it’s too late. We are the party of small businesses, we are former small-business owners, and, after six years of destruction, we’re going to get this country back to where it is. It’s a country of small business—that’s who we’re backing. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s always a privilege to take a call in this House, but I don’t do so today with any great pride, to be honest, in this House, having heard some of the debate this afternoon.

I want to put on record that I come from a place of privilege, and there are a lot of people in this House who do come from a place of privilege, and I think it is incumbent on all of us to be able to recognise that and recognise that our job in this House is to do the work and to do the mahi for the people who are the most vulnerable in our community. That is one of the reasons why I’ve come to this House.

Across the other side of the House, whenever the word “union” is mentioned, there’s a lot of scoffing. So I’m going to talk just a little bit about some of the work I did as a union organiser—wait for the scoffing—the real work, like sitting in the office of a supermarket manager with a woman close to retirement age. Yeah, it’s interesting watching the people across on the other side laugh. It’s not funny, the story I’m about to tell here, Katie Nimon—it’s not funny.

Hon Kelvin Davis: It’s just their white privilege kicking in.

RACHEL BOYACK: Oh, this is where the privilege does kick in.

I’m talking about a woman in her sixties working for a large supermarket chain, being threatened with losing her job. Do you know why? Because, while working for close to the minimum wage, she wasn’t stacking shelves fast enough. Now, this is actually an Australian company that she worked for, making millions of dollars of profit, and they were saying to this woman, “You are going to lose your job because you’re not stacking those shelves fast enough.”

This was the sort of thing I saw in my role, time and time again. I’m proud of that work. I’m proud of the fact that even though I studied employment relations at university, even though I studied this and I could have gone down the HR track, I chose to stand on the side of people who are often the most vulnerable.

So I want to take members opposite and just remind them of the Employment Relations Act 2000 and one of the sections contained within that wasn’t repealed by the previous National Government. If you look at section 3, “Object of this Act”, you will see that one of the things it states is “(a)(ii) by acknowledging and addressing the inherent inequality of power in employment relationships;”, and, furthermore, to promote collective bargaining.

Having actually studied the subject at university—and one of the things that I hear this Government often talking about is wanting to be evidence-based. Well, let’s talk about the evidence. The evidence says, particularly for women, that if you negotiate as a group, you get higher wages than if you do it on your own. That’s particularly true for women.

There’s an amazing woman called Marjorie Corman Aaron, who actually found through research that a woman who went in and negotiated aggressively for higher pay was the least likely to get hired. But a man who went in and aggressively negotiated the pay was most likely to get hired. This is real research—this is the truth of the matter. So women, in particular, by negotiating together as a group, end up doing better for all of them. And that’s one of the reasons I’m so proud to stand on this side of the House—because it’s not about me; it’s about we. It’s about all of us, and that’s one of the values that we hold. It’s not about what that one individual gets; it’s actually about what we do for all workers.

So I’m going to talk a little bit about some of the work I did in the supermarket industry and a particular woman who used to vote for the other side of the House but doesn’t now because she saw what they are really like. I’m talking about a wonderful woman called Jenny Wells who was a delegate at Pak ’N Save in Nelson. Jenny has had strokes recently, and even though she had a stroke, she still had to keep working because she wasn’t earning enough money. She hadn’t earned enough money working at that supermarket to have decent savings. She went back to work because her husband was sick and couldn’t go to work. She went back to work. The business was sold from one owner to another, and she actually lost terms and conditions through that sale. She lost her time and a half. She lost other penal rates and other extra pieces of annual leave when that business was sold. Now, that’s a multimillion-dollar business—multimillion-dollar business.

And what we saw during saw COVID was a lot of people wanting to congratulate our supermarket workers. But do you know what they did? They sent them cards, they sent them chocolates, but, actually, what those supermarket workers need, especially when the supermarkets absolutely creamed it, is decent pay. And we even saw some supermarkets temporarily increase pay by 10 percent and then at the end of the lockdown say, “Oh no, sorry, you’re not worth that anymore. We’re going to take that away from you.”, and there was community outrage about that.

So one of the issues with the duopoly in the supermarket sector is that we have Countdown, which is an Australian-owned company. They do have a collective agreement in place and the workers in that supermarket normally earn around $2 an hour more than those in a Pak ’N Save or a New World, which are New Zealand - owned. That profit from Countdown—well, it’s now called Woolworths—goes back to Australia. We don’t see it in New Zealand. It goes back across the Ditch.

The profit for those locally owned New Zealand supermarkets, which, seriously, print millions of dollars of money each year, goes back into the pocket of an individual owner. But for those workers, who work their butts off—and I think every single one of us can walk into a supermarket and know that those people in that supermarket are working their absolute butts off—there has been an enormous amount of difficulty getting collective agreements into Pak ’N Save and New World. Part of the reason is that the law does not support that to happen.

Even in my patch—I had an email from someone working in this area who’d been trying to get a collective agreement for up to eight years. So for people to say “You can just work it out.”, eight years of just trying to work it out hasn’t worked. The person wrote to me and said that the Fair Pay Agreements Act was built for cases like this where employers who subvert the intent of the law in bad faith are surface bargaining in order to create a protracted process and undermine the collective will of the workers. A fair pay agreement (FPA) would mean that these workers would get an actual increase in wages, better working conditions, penalty rates for giving up family time on nights and weekends, and much better health and safety provisions. That the Government is attempting to repeal them in haste, under the cover of urgency, and without due process is a failure of their responsibilities to the working people of Aotearoa.

This pre-Christmas move would make the Grinch grin to ear to ear, as the Government steals FPAs out of the pockets of hard-working Kiwis. I thought that was an excellent email, just demonstrating—I see people are laughing again, and I honestly can’t believe that people are laughing. I’ve known supermarket workers who, well before we had challenges around the cost of living, were having to go to a food bank—a food bank. So for people to think this is funny—you know, they laughed before when my colleague Camilla Belich was talking about security guards who die on the job. They die on the job—they get stabbed. People, again, are laughing when I talk about security guards.

Hon Member: It’s really inappropriate.

RACHEL BOYACK: It’s really inappropriate, and it really, really bothers me.

But here are some other words I’ve had from supermarket workers today. A man who works for a New World told me today that “a fair pay agreement is important to me and my co-workers because it gives us financial stability to pay bills for our kids and our homes. We shouldn’t struggle to make ends meet when supermarkets profit more each year.” Another one said, “I work night fill, often six nights a week. I start at 10 and usually finish around 7—it’s very unsocial hours. The job involves heavy labour and we are often made to work at a fast pace. It is very tiring. Having a fair pay agreement will allow me a much better work-life balance and allow me to spend more time with friends and family, to work fewer shifts for the same money.”

On Friday, I spent some time with early childhood education workers, who are one of the groups that have a fair pay agreement in train. There’s been much said about the pay of early childhood workers for many years. They have also worked towards pay equity, pay parity with other teachers, but also the importance of having enough qualified teachers within that sector so that we have enough good quality teachers earning proper wages who are able to then look after our youngest. This is the type of worker that the repeal of this law is going to undermine.

So I remind members across the whole House that we are here for all New Zealanders but particularly for the most vulnerable, and I do not commend this bill to the House.

I have heard from small and medium business owners across the Wairarapa electorate that are suffering as a result of the last Government’s poor legislation. They don’t have the same capacity to absorb blanket, top-down costs that large businesses do, and they’re suffering right now from the cost of living crisis inherited from over there that is strangling our communities.

Employers within our communities have a relationship with their employees that’s built on trust—trust that the employer and employees uphold; trust that they will behave fairly and reasonably to each other. There’s trust that rates of pay and working conditions reflect the market, the industry, and the location. Owners of small and medium enterprises in the Wairarapa electorate have a personal relationship with their staff. They often go to school together. They shop at the same supermarket together. A high level of trust is a feature of the employment in small towns and our rural communities, and one that we should endeavour to encourage and support.

Crushing small businesses with unnecessary legislation will impoverish businesses, business owners, and local workers in my electorate. Repealing the Fair Pay Agreements Act will bring some relief to small businesses who are already suffering under the cost of living crisis. Both—[Suze Redmayne passes the member a note]

Hon Willie Jackson: Speak from the heart!

MIKE BUTTERICK: Thank you for the advice. Both National and ACT campaigned strongly against the introduction of fair pay agreements.

Hon Willie Jackson: Oh, sit down, man—sit down.

MIKE BUTTERICK: Thank you for the further advice from over the other side of the House. Businesses need the flexibility—

SPEAKER: Excuse me, excuse me. I think if the member was aware of the timings that have been agreed by the House, he might not have so much to say about the current process. As someone who does ask us to make concessions at various times, you know, I would ask him to show us some indulgence at this point. I could speak for longer if I had to, but I’ll go back to Mike Butterick.

MIKE BUTTERICK: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Businesses need the flexibility to innovate if New Zealand is going to compete on the world stage. We’re a trading nation and our economic viability depends on it. Workplace flexibility is also a priority for workers, especially workers seeking a better work-life balance. We all want higher wages and better conditions, especially during a cost of living crisis. But under fair pay agreements, the cost of doing business would have increased and the price of the goods and services that businesses provide would have increased as well.

Labour, the Greens, and the unions said fair pay agreements would be good for workers, but they were likely to have the opposite effect. Employers would have hired fewer workers or they would have reduced the number of hours they offered existing workers. Some businesses would have increased their rate of automation, reducing their reliance on workers. Some businesses would be at risk of closure.

There’s been some talk about the Government ignoring advice on this legislation. The most important thing to know about the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s advice is that they recommended against introducing fair pay agreements, arguing that the improvements for employees would be marginal and would be achieved at a significant cost to employer flexibility, and a blunt tool like fair pay agreements would not have been successful at improving employment outcomes for disadvantaged workers. Disadvantaged workers would actually have been made worse off under fair pay agreements because businesses would have hired fewer people or reduced the hours of work offered to existing workers because of the costs imposed on them.

Without increasing productivity, businesses can only afford so much without having to raise prices, lay off staff, or close down completely. The previous Government made hiring staff too difficult, too expensive, and disincentivised employers from taking risks. New Zealand’s small and medium businesses are bursting with entrepreneurship, creativity, and innovation, and deserve a Government that empowers them because that’s how we create opportunities. Thank you. I commend this bill.

At this point, we would normally be going into committee stages, and that would be a little bit of kerfuffle just a few seconds ahead of an agreed time for a maiden speech. So we’ll just take a moment and then I’ll call the member for a maiden speech.