Care and Support Worker (Pay Equity) Settlement Bill

I move, That the Care and Support Worker (Pay Equity) Settlement Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Health Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 6 June 2017 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, despite Standing Orders 191 and 194(1)(b) and (c).

It is a great pleasure to be speaking here on Budget day 2017, a historic Budget that shares the benefits of growth with the people of New Zealand by improving public services, investing in infrastructure, reducing debt, and lifting incomes. It is a reflection of the sound fiscal management of the Government over the past nearly 9 years that we now have surpluses and a growing economy, and, of course, that brings options with how to spend that accumulated surplus. In that context, it is great to be taking the first call in the debate on this bill, a bill that implements what is likely to be the largest employment settlement in New Zealand’s history. It is also the first pay equity settlement achieved, and as such, it is truly historic.

I would like to thank all those involved in the negotiations for their constructive and positive approach, and that has been over 20 months of negotiations. I would like to acknowledge in particular the unions—that is, E tū, the Public Service Association, the New Zealand Nurses Organisation, and the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions—and, of course, the employer associations, consisting of the Aged Care Association, the Home and Community Health Association, and the New Zealand Disability Support Network. I would like to thank also the Crown negotiator and the many officials who worked tirelessly to achieve this settlement. But actually, above all, I think the House should pay tribute to Kristine Bartlett, who agreed to put herself forward to advance the original claim, and an excellent person she is. This is a major achievement that she is responsible for delivering. It was certainly great to host her in my office here in the Beehive just a few weeks ago, when we signed the agreement.

I would also like to thank all parties in the House that have agreed to progress this legislation giving effect to the settlement. And what a settlement it is—$2 billion over 5 years to increase wages for around 55,000 dedicated and hard-working care and support workers. This predominately female workforce cares for some of our most vulnerable people, helping them to live with dignity and with as much independence as possible. During my days as a GP, I saw the dedication and hard work of these people at first hand on many, many occasions. The skill and effort that they bring to the job is something that deserves to be rewarded fairly, and I am very pleased to be able to introduce legislation that is going to make that happen.

The settlement agreement in this legislation will mean that from 1 July this year, care and support workers will start being paid at the level that reflects their qualifications and experience. For the 20,000 workers currently on the minimum wage of $15.75 per hour, it means that on 1 July they will move to at least $19 per hour, which is a 21 percent pay rise. For a full-time worker, that means they will be taking home an extra $100 a week, which is over $5,000 per year extra in the hand. New pay rates will be based on qualifications, and will be phased in over 5 years.

But we also recognise that many carers without formal qualifications have a wealth of experience, so current workers with extensive experience will move to new pay rates based on that experience. For example, a care and support worker with no formal qualifications but 8 years of experience will receive the pay rate applying to a worker with a level 3 qualification. That means that a worker in that situation who has been working in a rest home for a decade, helping people find comfort through their last months of life, might be getting $17 an hour. From 1 July they will now be getting $21 an hour, rising to $25 an hour by 1 June 2021, and that person will be getting help to get formal qualifications. So overall, for that worker that would be a 47 percent increase in remuneration over 5 years. The increase in income is going to make a massive difference to those workers and to their families.

I can tell you that when I visited Anne Maree Court rest home in my electorate of Northcote the day after the announcement of the settlement, the care and support workers were literally singing and dancing and cheering with excitement. It was quite an experience.

It is important to note that this was a successful negotiation all round, with more than just the care and support workers benefiting from the settlement. The employers managed to avoid further court action, and they also avoid the risk of back-pay liability. The Government will be funding them to offset the costs. Employers will also receive the benefit of lower turnover of the workforce due to those increased wages, and they will also have a more capable and skilled workforce through access to training and qualifications. At the same time, the Government gets an agreed and certain outcome that is affordable, thanks to the headroom built up by a long-term fiscal strategy. All of this money is new money added to Vote Health.

But, most importantly, the clients of these services will see a benefit from more highly trained health workers who are more likely to be the same ones they saw yesterday. So there will be a more highly trained workforce with lower turnover and a definite career path for those workers.

The bill implements those parts of the settlement that the parties agreed would be legislated. It extinguishes all current pay equity claims for this workforce and bars future proceedings for the term of the agreement. It establishes a set of wage rates based on qualifications, with a transitional arrangement for workers who do not have formal qualifications but who do have extensive experience. It requires the funders to give the employers extra funding towards the costs of the increased wages and other requirements of the settlement. It provides for the settlement to apply to all care and support workers, whether or not they are union members.

The Government recognises that implementation of this agreement will be complex for some providers. This agreement will see a new pay matrix introduced that will standardise the pay offered by hundreds of providers under thousands of separate contracts. The key point is that 55,000 care and support workers will be receiving their increased pay in their pay packets from 1 July this year. Aged residential care providers, which employ about 43 percent of the total workforce, have agreed new contract prices that reflect their increased costs. For others, they will be paid according to their actual costs until new prices can be agreed.

Because this bill needs to be in effect, obviously, by 1 July, there is limited time for select committee consideration, but even a shortened select committee consideration will be important in order to ensure that the House has got the legislation right and to ensure that people and organisations affected have the opportunity to comment on the bill.

It is, of course, a big day for health in the Budget: $3.9 billion over 4 years, taking health spending to a record $16.8 billion for 2017-18. That is going to be $888 million—$888 million. It is hard to believe, but it is the single biggest increase in 11 years. That is what this Government is delivering in this Budget. There is $1.76 billion over 4 years for district health boards. That is $439 million this year. Of course, we have covered the $279 million in this Budget for care and support workers. There is $205 million for disability support services, and, as was previously announced, there is $60 million for Pharmac, $52 million for emergency ambulance double-crewing, and $38.5 million for bowel screening—all services that we are delighted to be delivering for New Zealanders.

But one of the most important things is the $224 million over 4 years for mental health, to strengthen our services and make sure that all New Zealanders can get access to the services that they need. That includes $100 million in the social investment fund for innovative approaches over the next 4 years; $100 million, roughly, for the ring-fence; and an extra $24 million for mental health initiatives delivered in an innovative manner across a range of portfolios.

This is, indeed, an extremely historic piece of legislation. It is going to make an enormous difference for care and support workers and their families, and I would just like to once again thank all the people and organisations who have worked so hard to make sure that this agreement happens. I am very proud to commend this bill to the House.

Did that not sound like pulling teeth? Did that not sound like pulling teeth? The words coming out of the Minister of Health’s mouth said one thing; his body language said something completely different—completely different. That Minister was not comfortable delivering that message.

This is a day of celebration. Finally—finally—those low-paid workers have some justice. I agree with the Minister that this is a historic day. This is a really significant settlement. He talked about the constructive relationship over 20 months in getting to this point. He did not mention 5 years—5 years—since the court cases began to get to this point. He did not mention that lawyers whom he instructed, whom his Government instructed, fought this tooth and nail every step of the way. That Minister has said the things that should have been said, but he has not meant them. I think we can see that in this House. I think the body language gives it away.

My congratulations, first and foremost, to those who took the case. Let us say a thankyou for the TerraNova case to Kristine Bartlett and to the Service and Food Workers Union, which took this case and made this happen. This is a very special day. This will have implications that will continue for some time to come, for low-wage workers in this sector and also in other sectors.

I want to cover briefly a little bit of the history. We know that this industry, the care and support industry, is mostly made up of female employees, with a high proportion working part-time. A 2015 workforce survey by the Ministry of Health indicated that the average wage rate was between $15 and $16 an hour.

I remember when I was doorknocking before I was a member of Parliament—out doorknocking in the streets of Dunedin North—coming across somebody who worked in the sector who had recently given in her notice. She was reluctant to do that because she loved the work she was doing and she was good at it, but this woman concluded that she could no longer afford to feed her family in doing this work that she was good at, and doing the caring that she believed in for people who really needed it. That woman was going to stack shelves in a supermarket at night, a job for which she did not have any particular qualification, but she was grateful for the few extra dollars that would mean she could feed her family at the end of the week. It is a disgrace that we ever got to this situation, and so it is a really good thing that we are working out how we can move on from there.

The pay equity claim, as I mentioned, was filed 5 years ago in 2012 in the Employment Court—TerraNova v Service and Food Workers Union and Bartlett. The plaintiff’s claim was that because the work is predominantly performed by women, care and support workers are paid less than would be paid to a man performing work involving similar skills, responsibilities, conditions, and degrees of effort. The Employment Court, and subsequently the Court of Appeal, determined that the Equal Pay Act of 1972 did allow for such pay equity claims to be pursued. The Government fought that all the way. In June 2015, after the Supreme Court refused leave for TerraNova Homes and Care to appeal, a Crown negotiator was appointed to facilitate a negotiated settlement.

That is how we got to where we are today—a position where some skilled workers will get $5,000 more in their hands. They would not have got that had they not taken that case. This Government opposite is the same one that threw out a bill I had when I was a new member in this House to take the minimum wage to $15 an hour because it thought it was too much. Now, today, it is here saying that it is glad this has been settled, but let us not forget—let us not forget, members—that it fought this tooth and nail every step of the way.

The $5,000 more I mentioned—it will be different for different workers, but the workforce will get between 15 and 49 percent more, depending on their qualifications and experience. For example, an aged-care worker on the minimum wage will now take home around another $106 a week from July. And that is what they should always have been getting. That is what they should always have been getting, had it not been for the Government fighting this all the way.

This is not a victory for the National Government. This is a victory for the workers and for the union that generously took this case and shared the benefits across the industry, with those who are union members and those who are not. This is a victory for low-wage workers. This is a victory for the labour movement. The members across there were dragged, kicking and screaming, trying to fight the 55,000 low-paid workers who benefited from it, trying to fight it all the way, appealing at each and every stage. The Government came to an agreement, finally, because it realised it had no choice. The public was not on its side.

This is matched today in the announcements around funding for the health system. The Minister mentioned them in his speech. He talked about record amounts going into the health sector, but it is simply not keeping up, Minister. We know that $650 million was required for district health boards (DHBs) just to stand still, to deliver the same level of services that they are delivering now. The Minister gave them $439 million—over $200 million short in this Budget alone. That adds to the $1.7 billion—$1.7 billion—that the Government has cut out of the healthcare sector over the last 6 years.

Treasury published a report that has recently been released—it was written in February this year—that says that there have not been productivity gains in the sector. That leaves only one conclusion: if there have not been productivity gains in the case-weighted discharges, that means that services are being cut. If you fund less and there are no productivity gains, you deliver fewer services. That is, unfortunately, what this Government is delivering for healthcare generally.

Then the Minister talked about mental health. The Minister talked about the money that he is hoping to put into mental health. Let us not forget that 2 weeks ago, the Minister delivered a speech that said that he was going to take a paper to Cabinet shortly for $25 million a year—part of the social investment package, so-called. That $25 million a year is a drop in the bucket, and the Minister announced that only when the pressure came on from the Labour Party saying that we need more money in mental health and need to put extra money in with specific initiatives. The Minister still does not know what he is doing. His press release today said that he still has not taken the paper to Cabinet, and that Cabinet has still not even considered what it is doing with mental health.

There is a growing crisis in this country, and the Government has no answer. It tried to beef up its press release by saying that there would be an additional $100 million over 4 years, which was within the DHB baseline funding—i.e., that $439 million announced, which was short of the $650 million required, would also be tied up in part with mental health funding. So it has tied the DHBs’ hands further and announced money that is already being spent. That is the best it can do. I am not surprised Mike King walked away from this Government’s efforts to look at mental health.

I want to read some words from the press release announcing that particular flagship: “$100 million for a new cross-government social investment fund that will target innovative new proposals to tackle mental health issues.” Does anyone in this House know what that means? I hear silence. I do not think anyone in this House knows what that means, and I do not think, especially, that the Minister knows what that means. That is gobbledygook. That is rubbish. That is the best this Government has got for the mental health crisis in New Zealand—a 60 percent increase in people using mental health services, and today all that was in the Budget was a few words that said “a cross-government social investment fund that will target innovative new proposals to tackle mental health issues.” That was the best it could offer. It has no vision. It is out of ideas. It has been here for 9 years, and that is 9 years too long.

What we need is a fresh approach. A Labour Government will deliver a fresh approach in health. It will deliver that fresh approach in mental health. We have announced school-based services already; we have announced a pilot where there will be community mental health workers available, free GP consults, and so on. A fresh approach will come from a Labour Government.

But today I do want to say that Labour will support this settlement because finally the Government has got there, 5 years on, fighting it tooth and nail at every step. It is a victory for the labour movement. My congratulations to Kristine Bartlett, my congratulations to the Service and Food Workers Union, and thank goodness that the Government has finally settled on this and that those workers will get the pay they should always have been getting.

I am absolutely delighted to speak to the Care and Support Worker (Pay Equity) Settlement Bill. This is a significant bill and it is an important bill because it is about supporting our most vulnerable older and disabled people. If you are an older person, and if you are older and disabled—and you have got to realise that of anyone over 65, perhaps about 60 percent of those people also have a disability—this is a significant bill for you. This because for our most vulnerable older and disabled people, their health, their well-being, and their quality of life revolves around the attention and the care that they get, often on a daily basis, from specialist care and support workers.

Care and support workers are mostly women—we know that—and they work very long hours. They do a very difficult job. Until the passing of this bill, they were often paid at a minimum wage. This bill delivers on the Government’s $2 billion pay equity settlement for some of the health sector’s lowest-paid workers. It is a historic settlement. It recognises that the work carried out by this female workforce—and there are 55,000 workers whom it affects; this workforce of care and support workers—really does underpin the well-being of our aged and disabled people. Whether they are in residential care or whether they are in home and community care, support services across the country are reliant on these people.

This settlement and this bill will help ensure that we have a higher-paid, more skilled, and more engaged workforce across the country. Those people are supporting 110,000 of New Zealand’s most vulnerable. I could not be more pleased. The work of these women is so appreciated by older people and disabled people, but, actually, everywhere I go in the sector, people tell me how important it is for carers and support workers to be appreciated and how much they make a difference to their lives.

These new pay rates are significant. They are significant for 55,000 workers, but for at least 20,000 workers—those are the full-time workers—they will get an extra $100 a week, up to $5,000 a year. The settlement is not just about wages. It also provides incentives to help care and support workers to access training and formal qualifications. Employers are required to provide the necessary systems and support to enable workers to achieve New Zealand Qualifications Authority health and well-being certificate qualifications. The idea behind that is that qualifications will increase from level 2 to level 4 over a 6-year period. The Government is very supportive of that, and, to that end, it will fund employers for 2 days per employee, per year, as its contribution to the education and training.

Society’s attitudes are changing. They are changing towards older and disabled people. This settlement provides new opportunities to deliver different services. The changing models of care mean that disabled people are increasingly living in home-like settings in the community, with 24-hour support from care workers. Whether they are disabled or older, where they can no longer live in their own homes, care workers also help them live well—as well as possible—in residential care facilities.

The care and support workforce has traditionally had a high turnover, of about 30 percent. We think that the increased wage rates are expected to help with recruitment and the retention of workers. That will mean a better continuity of care for clients and a more stable workforce overall. I think this is particularly important as we have an ageing population.

The settlement also links pay rates to qualifications, as I have said, and this will encourage care and support workers to increase their qualifications, meaning that over time workers are likely to be more highly-trained, more skilled, more innovative, and more able to provide a more flexible type of care. I think that is going to underpin the quality of life for the people they care for.

This settlement has been well received across the community. Everywhere I go, people seem to appreciate the work that carers and support workers do, and they are really pleased to see their increased wages. I think also, because they are mostly women, it is a real win for gender equality. Everywhere I have gone in the community, people right across the board have been positive. That includes health professionals like the New Zealand Nurses Organisation and also business interests like the New Zealand Aged Care Association.

The New Zealand Nurses Organisation Industrial Services Manager, Cee Payne, said: “This equal settlement delivers pay rates that truly reflect the skills and importance of the work that care and support workers undertake every day. Decent pay rates and the right to achieve qualifications will grow and retain skilled workers to care for our elderly. This will build public confidence that high quality care will be delivered to our families’ loved ones in our rest homes and hospitals.” For business, the New Zealand Aged Care Association Chief Executive, Simon Wallace, said he was happy with the outcome—that it would be a “game changer” by making the industry more attractive to workers and that “It will lead to a well-trained, better-paid, and more stable care workforce.”

In conclusion, I am very, very pleased to be able to support this bill. It will give carers and support workers a significant increase in wages and it will give them greater access to training and a well-deserved appreciation from the public of New Zealand. I think it is well supported right across the community by health professionals and by businesses, and I think the reason for that is that it will improve the healthcare, the quality of life, and the well-being of our most vulnerable elderly and disabled people. So I too would like to congratulate Kristine Bartlett and her supporters, and everyone who has been involved in this settlement. Kia ora.

Today is certainly a day to celebrate. Like others have done, I want to acknowledge Kristine Bartlett. I want to acknowledge the leadership of the unions that were involved in this: E tū, its precursor union the Service and Food Workers Union, the New Zealand Nurses Organisation, the Public Service Association, the Council of Trade Unions, and the entire union movement, which threw its weight behind this campaign, which has been going on for a number of years. In particular, I want to acknowledge the thousands of unionised care and support workers who have held the line year after year after year and stuck to this campaign.

Before I came into Parliament I had the privilege of working for the Nurses Organisation, and my first job for it was as an organiser. I met—and it was a real privilege to do so—hundreds of care and support workers who were trying to build this movement within their industry amongst their co-workers. It can be a real challenge to convince people who are already on incredibly low wages to pay that union fee in the hope that one day the campaign will be successful. For thousands of people, that was too much of a challenge, but so many of them did. They stayed in—they stayed part of the union. Now that they have got the win—now that they have got the victory—they are sharing it with everybody. That is a wonderful thing to do, and they should be congratulated and acknowledged for doing it.

People have talked about the 20 months of negotiation and they have talked about the 5 years of court battles, but no one has yet mentioned the years and years and years and years of campaigning that went on, and the struggle that has gone on. So I want to say to those who did stay in the movement, who stayed firm, and who held the line: congratulations. The day has finally come, and it is not long now before the money will be in your bank account.

I know that is not what it is all about; it is actually about recognition, because the other thing that I discovered when I met these incredible women—incredible people; predominantly women, of course—was their commitment and dedication to what they did and to the people whom they cared for. It is not a job that I think most people in this House could do. It is an incredibly intimate job. It is caring for another human being and providing incredibly intimate services. It takes a certain disposition, it takes an incredible amount of empathy, it takes love, and it takes dedication. For too long we relied on that love and dedication to keep people in the profession, even though they could earn more pulling veges out of the ground, stacking shelves, or even looking after animals at the city pound. All those jobs paid more than being a care and support worker, and yet women carried on doing what they did because of their commitment to the people whom they cared for.

Today, in this settlement, it is not just about the money. It is about acknowledging what a tremendous job it is that they do and how lost we would be as a society if we did not have those wonderful care and support workers doing the job that they do. It is also an acknowledgment that we are finally recognising the place of our elderly. I always found it—well, I thought it was poor form that we considered caring for our elder people such a low priority that we paid the minimum wage, or barely more than that, to the people who were responsible for caring for them. So it is not just an acknowledgment of the workers themselves; it is an acknowledgment of the elderly people.

We have heard a lot about the package—$2 billion. We have heard a lot about what is going to happen, on average, to people. I just want to share one story about one worker who is going to be affected by this. Her name is Amor Taite and she is from Palmerston North. She works in home support, so she is one of the people who goes into people’s homes to care for them in their own home. Again, it is an incredibly intimate relationship she has with her clients. She has been a home support worker for 20 years, and because she wants to provide the very best care she has become qualified—she has a level 3 qualification. Despite two decades of experience and despite being qualified in her role, she currently earns $16.22—barely above the minimum wage. As a result of this settlement her hourly rate will rise to $21 an hour—finally, some decent recognition of her experience, her qualification, and her commitment to the people whom she cares for.

Amor said: “It’ll just make things so much easier. You can do so much more. You can buy more things, have a social life. It’ll all go back into the economy.”, and she is absolutely right. One of the best things we can do to stimulate our economy is actually to put more money in the back pockets of low-income workers. And you can save a bit. It will just ease things right across the board. It is as simple as that. It is about giving people real freedom and real choices.

So I want to congratulate all those workers and the movement on getting to this position, and, look, I want to congratulate the Government for getting around the table. I want to say this gently but honestly: it got around the table because if it did not, then the court settlement was actually going to result in a much greater, much more expensive exercise for the Government. Good on the unions and good on the workers for being prepared, actually, to give up on back-pay claims and to come to a settlement that the Government was prepared to pay out on, because if it was stuck with a court decision it would have cost an awful lot more. But, again, this is the practicality of the unionised workforce: it is actually prepared to get around the table and do what is right and do what is in the national interest as well as in its own interest.

I want to say this: I think the model of workers, employers, and the Government getting around the table and saying “We have a real problem in this industry. Wages are not high enough, conditions are not good enough, we’re struggling to retain and attract workers, and we’re not actually recognising the role of those workers properly.” is an incredibly good model. I want to acknowledge that in a way the Government has set, I think, a wonderful precedent here. This is an industry-level agreement that sets minimum standards right across the care and support industry, regardless of whether workers are unionised or not, in which any employer—in this case, tendering to district health boards to use public money to provide a service—has to meet these minimum standards of pay and conditions for their workforce. They cannot undercut each other on those standards. I think that is a brilliant precedent, and I want to congratulate the National Government on bringing that precedent forward and working with that precedent—that tripartite approach of employers, workers, and the Government working together to get good conditions and good outcomes for working people.

I say to the Government, do not make this the end. Do not cut off the future pay equity settlements. I know that is not part of this bill, but there is another piece of legislation, and we are going to have to negotiate a little bit in this House about what the future holds. It is not just for pay equity settlements and equal pay but, actually, for other industries where people are low-paid and other industries were workers are vulnerable. This is an incredibly good model—the idea of having an industry-standard agreement that is negotiated and sets standards for everybody working in that industry. It is a wonderful idea. We really like it on this side of the House, and we are really pleased that the National Government is on board with that concept as well.

So I want to say congratulations to everybody involved in this. This is a good settlement. This is a victory for working people. It has been incredibly hard fought, and it just demonstrates that when working people work together and when they organise under the banner of unions, then the victory does come. It sometimes seems a very long way off, and 12 years ago when I was an organiser it did seem a long way off, but victory does come when we work together. Let us continue this legislation in that spirit. Let us work together to get this bill passed as quickly as possible and get that money in the pockets of those care and support workers.

I am very pleased to take a call on this Care and Support Worker (Pay Equity) Settlement Bill. I might actually start generally before I get specific. Why I want to start generally is to acknowledge those who work in the care and support sector. As someone who has engaged, often with a different hat on, with hospitals, hospices, retirement villages, and the like, I have always been very conscious of that level of care that is provided. It is not a level of care or an aspect of care that a lot of Kiwis get to see. I think, for all of those who serve our communities in these roles, it is something to be acknowledged and given a heartfelt thankyou.

From my own side—granted, not in New Zealand, but from doing this work in Fiji for a number of years—I would actually echo what the previous speaker, Iain Lees-Galloway, was saying and reaching towards. There is an intimacy, for want of a better word, with this role, as you are working to support and care alongside people who often have lost the ability to look after some of their most basic needs. It really is just, I suppose, a small personal element to acknowledge somewhat of an understanding of this dynamic, but also to say thank you to those who are involved.

More specifically, we are very aware that this is a settlement negotiated between the Crown and a variety of unions, led particularly through that court case by Kristine Bartlett. So, to all the unions, to Kristine, and to all those involved, including the Crown negotiators, I thank you for bringing us to this point.

This bill, in its first reading today, is all about bringing effect to the settlement. We have actually been through this dynamic before. This was around pay and travel costs, also for those providing support in the community. What is really important, particularly for those at home who are trying to understand, is that while an agreement has been reached, it does still take a piece of parliamentary legislation to make it happen.

Importantly too, for those who have been following the debate—“discussion” is perhaps a better word—this evening, we are moving to quite a quick select committee process. We intend to report this bill back to the House the day after the Queen’s Birthday weekend—so just over a week away. The primary reason for that is that the agreement is set to take effect on 1 July. The long and the short of it is that we have to get this piece of legislation passed by then.

We will, as a select committee—and I am very pleased to chair the Health Committee; I think this is an appropriate committee for the bill to come to—be moving rapidly in the next few days, and sitting extraordinary hours, actually, to make sure we can manage it. We will move swiftly, and so I suppose there is the invitation in the discussion and debate today for those groups that are interested to put in a submission as quickly as possible and, where possible as well, to come and speak with us next week.

I think importantly, too, for those making submissions, this bill is about a particular agreement, and, obviously, we want to hear about that. This bill is not for the wider pay equity discussion. That bill is being worked on by the Government and will be introduced in the House at a different point in time. But I think I can speak for the whole committee in saying that we are looking forward to considering this bill.

The work that carers do has been acknowledged in many ways, and a number of the people speaking so far have, obviously, talked around the recompense—the monetary side of things—but I think it is also important to acknowledge that this agreement brings in education and upskilling as well. First and foremost, levels of experience and levels of qualifications are going to affect how much a person receives in their pay settlement. But, really importantly, this agreement is about making sure employers help to facilitate, encourage, or are cajoled, if required, to make sure that their caring staff are able to train and upskill as necessary. I think that is a win for all involved. It has been noted, obviously—the stability of staff. But I think also, really importantly, it stresses the importance of care.

I know that on our Health Committee at the moment and in some public fora, there is a lot of discussion about how we appropriately care for our elderly and for those who are ill. I think, actually, that carers in our community show the way forward, which is to provide more and more generous care. I know that some others have provided other options that might be available, and I think this is why this bill becomes more important. It really stresses the importance of one human being caring for another—providing all that is required.

So this is a very good settlement. This is a very good negotiation. I am not going to go into all the technical elements such as claims being extinguished, which the Minister referred to, but this bill fundamentally comes back to acknowledging a sector of New Zealand’s workforce that I think is often unseen and is clearly undervalued. Importantly, the agreement not only acknowledges that and moves the pay rates up, but I think it is putting a structure in place to continue to support carers to be even better and stronger in their role. I think, and I hope, that this is, in some ways, the first step in a continuing journey in this regard.

I am very pleased to recommend the bill, and I commend it to the House. I am looking forward to it coming to the select committee. I think we will be meeting—as a heads-up to my colleagues—first thing tomorrow morning to begin work on this, and throughout the rest of the week. I commend the bill to the House.

It is a huge honour to stand in the House this evening to contribute to, and offer the Green Party’s support for, the first reading of the Care and Support Worker (Pay Equity) Settlement Bill. I want to join with the others who have spoken already—and just so full-heartedly—in paying tribute to Kristine Bartlett and her E tū union colleagues, and the New Zealand Nurses Organisation and Public Service Association colleagues, who came and joined the fight.

This is a step along the journey that was started by Kate Sheppard over 120 years ago. The suffragettes in this country—next on their agenda was equal pay for work of equal value. Here we are; we have been slowly, slowly moving. This is a struggle. I just want to express how incredibly impressed I am with these women for getting this across the line. This is a truly historic moment and it gives hope to so many other women in this country who have been undervalued and exploited for far too long. So thank you, thank you, thank you, on behalf of the Green Party.

I want also to acknowledge that alongside the pay equity struggle, this has also been a struggle for recognition of, and valuing specifically, the work in the aged-care sector. This has been a struggle that has been going on for 30 years in this sector alone, with select committee reports and inquiries and volumes of paper, including an inquiry done by the Labour Party’s Winnie Laban and Sue Kedgley from the Green Party in 2012. Then, of course, there was the very notable report Caring Counts by the former Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner Judy McGregor. They all identified that training and pay were major issues that needed to have been resolved well ahead of time in the caring industry.

I do just want to point out that Judy McGregor, through the Human Rights Commission, in that incredibly considered report—for which she went undercover and worked as an aged-care worker—laid out a time frame for resolving these issues, as well as the other issues in the sector in relation to training. We would have had this sorted by 2016—by last year; all of the issues in the sector—if the Government had picked up on that expert advice.

It was laid out there to do, but the Government instead chose to intervene, alongside the employers, against Kristine Bartlett and the aged-care workers who were seeking justice in the courts and an end to exploitation. Kristine and E tū were forced to go as far as the Supreme Court. Really, I think people need to get their heads around the fact that these are some of New Zealand’s lowest-paid workers, who gave up a section of their pay that could have gone to feeding their families and keeping a roof over their head for their union contributions to pay for a court case that had to go all the way to the Supreme Court because the employers and the Government kept on challenging the decisions of the Employment Court, when this never needed to go to court.

Anyone who has had any dealings with aged-care work has known that those workers—mostly women workers—have been being exploited and that that job is an incredibly skilled job and is worth so much more than minimum wage. It was one of those things for me out on the election trail in many elections—well, the two I have been through. When you were talking to people about inequality and they were like “Yeah, I think people should, you know—they just need to work harder or, you know, pull their socks up.”, and then you would say: “Well, what about the aged-care workers, you know, who are on minimum wage, who are struggling to pay their bills? Don’t you think that’s a problem?”. Every time, that person had no comeback, because everyone recognises how incredibly valuable the work that they do is and how all of us want that good, friendly person to be there for us when we get to that time in our lives.

I do want to point out—oh, there is so much to say. I just want to touch on some of those points around just, specifically, acknowledging some of the work that people are doing in aged care and that the pay and training that is being pushed for is really important, but also staffing levels are important. That has not yet been acknowledged and we need to keep working on that because I think it puts an undue pressure on what is already an incredibly difficult job.

I do also want to acknowledge that this is a little bit like a Treaty settlement, in some ways, in the context that you have got to—I acknowledge the massive effort and the achievement and the work and the feat of negotiation that have gone into getting this result and the recognition of a fundamental right that underlies this around pay equity and the end of exploitation. But we have to recognise that this, and the legislation on the Table, is a deal that has been done in lieu of a just response, and it is a deal that the unions and Kristine have been—it is extraordinary, what they have managed to achieve against a Government that has fought them all the way.

But it is a deal and, as the Employment Court recognised, economic arguments do not stack up when it comes to pay equity. Economic arguments were used to justify slavery, and we kind of get that that was wrong. When we are seeing the pay increase being phased in over 5 years, that is telling me that the Government is still, despite the court rulings and despite the pressure, thinking that the economic arguments override the basic fundamental right and the basic fundamental drive to end exploitation.

I do want to acknowledge that the unions have managed to—in this deal, they have given up the right to back-pay and we need to acknowledge that. That is an established right in our courts, and they have given that up. They have given it up through the negotiation to be able to get to addressing qualifications and minimum standards, which they have been fighting for for so long. That is, again, another indication of the fact that these, mostly, women put the care of the people whom they are serving and working for first, above some of their basic legal entitlements and rights.

You know, hats off to them. I wish I could express it better, but I have so much admiration for them, and we should all just be so grateful to these women and should be committing to ending that exploitation, whenever we can, as quickly as we can, because they should not be having to trade off back-pay or the qualifications and the minimum standards for the immediate realisation of their right to equal pay.

Finally, I just want to again state how important this is. This is a fight that has been very, very hard fought, and it is a huge honour to stand and be a part of celebrating this victory for women coming together in union in the interests of all. Kia ora.

I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak to the Care and Support Worker (Pay Equity) Settlement Bill. Because New Zealand First wants to hear the voices of the individuals involved, the unions involved, and all those involved, we are going to support this bill at first reading, to get through to the select committee tomorrow. Both my colleague Ria Bond and I will be sitting in on the hearings because, as has been addressed, this is a monumental piece of legislation in its own way. But we cannot guarantee our support past that.

Unless the unions and unless the women themselves are a hundred percent happy with what is going on here, we are not prepared to support the Government. So we want to make sure that this is what the workers want. We want to make sure that this is what was talked about and signed behind closed doors and really made and really arranged between those workers and those unions and not somehow changed as it went from that room to this room. So I make that very clear. We support the bill at first reading. We hope we can support it all the way through, but we have seen this Government before.

It is interesting sitting here and listening to the Government members rise and talk about how happy they are that this is now going through and what a wonderful thing it is and how the carers really deserve it. I want to go back to 2012, and I want to go back to the Caring Counts report by Dr Judy McGregor. She came to give a briefing to New Zealand First. People may not remember it, but, actually, I was sent by New Zealand First to go to the protest outside TerraNova Homes and Care offices way back then. I was there with Jacinda Ardern. I was a bit green at the time—I had done a bit of protesting, but not a lot as an MP. I was not quite sure how far you could go.

Judy McGregor, when she came to brief us on Caring Counts, said that this was a case of State-sanctioned emotional blackmail, because the women, predominantly, who are in this workforce—and Jan Logie remarked upon it—would not leave their clients in the lurch. They would not just walk out and go and protest. They made sure that every protest that they held to draw attention to this issue was done with the least disruption to their clients because they did not see them as clients; they saw them as people.

I want people to remember what this Government and its support partners said back then in 2012. John Key said that this deal was a risk to the Budget, and possibly to the country’s future. That is what he said back in 2013. So there has been a long pull forward, and it got here only because Kristine Bartlett and the unions got together and took the Government to court. And, quite rightly, as was pointed out by my colleague Iain Lees-Galloway from the Labour Party, the Government was looking down the barrel of a much bigger settlement. So that drove it to the table.

In her report, Dr Judy McGregor said that to address the equal employment opportunities issue, there needed to be a dignified leadership within Government. Unfortunately, we were not able to find it inside this Government, and so, particularly as women and as a country, we had to go and find that leadership in Kristine Bartlett. The dignified leadership of Kristine Bartlett, who made herself the figurehead of this movement, well supported—absolutely, no doubt—by her fellow workers and by the unions. But that woman placed herself at the front of this issue, and it was not easy. It has never been easy to be a woman who has stood up and said: “I deserve it.” It was the message—and it was the message of this Government—that when a woman stood up and said “I do the work. I deserve the pay.”, somehow she was being selfish. That is what needed to be overcome. That is the criticism that took place when this issue first started.

I am not going to take very much more of our time because we do want to get this to the select committee. We do want to hear. We want to make sure that what is written down here is what people believe it to be. I will, however, comment on the kaiāwhina workforce and Careerforce, and the work that has been done after the Caring Counts report on developing that in-place, in-workforce training at very low cost to upskill that workforce.

I want to remind people about how vulnerable the New Zealanders are who are cared for in their own homes by this workforce. When an untrained person is sent there, both of those individuals are physically at risk. That is from personal experience, having been called by constituents in Rodney asking for support, both for themselves and for their carer. So we will be watching, we will be listening—it is a very tight time frame, and we understand why. We do not object to the very tight time frame because if this is correct, if it is good, then we want it to go forward and we want it in place by 1 July. But we will be listening, we will be watching, and we encourage as many people as possible to come forward in the time frame and submit to the select committee. Thank you.

Today, Budget day 2017, is a really momentous move forward for a group of 55,000 care workers, who have worked so diligently for a very long time for the care of their patients. They are just an outstanding workforce, and it is a real pleasure to be standing here.

I am really disappointed. This is a chance for all of us to start on the elimination of what has been a systemic undervaluation of a workforce that has been going on for way past our political times—it has been going on in history. We can stand here and talk, as the last speaker, Tracey Martin, did, about what happened in 2013 and what happened in 2012, but I think we should celebrate what has happened since that time.

I think we want to commend everybody who was involved in this process, getting it to the point that it is today. I also want to commend Kristine Bartlett, who put so much effort into leading the cause to where we are now.

This settlement really is important. As I said, we are addressing something that has been in the system for a very long time. There are a whole lot of reasons why this is very important, not just for the people who are being cared for—particularly when it is primary care, and particularly when those people want to be cared for in their own homes. There is a workforce out there, as we have heard today, of loving, caring people who actually go above and beyond what their work description says, who are out there and doing it because they care about the people whom they work for. I think that is really important. It keeps a lot of people close to home for a lot longer, and when they do need to go into care, there is a specialist population of workers there to look after them.

There is something else that I think is really important today, and it is around the links in the pay to the qualifications. That will really give these care workers the opportunity, after a very long time, to be able to start stepping up, getting extra pay for extra qualifications, and opening themselves up to choices. Often people end up in a space where that is where they have been for a lot of their life, and often they do not look at their options for getting out. I want to mention—back to the Budget—hearing the Prime Minister’s speech this afternoon, when he talked about investing in people and having them lifting themselves out of their situations and helping themselves to make a better life. So this education is a really, really important part of this deal, giving people a step up and stand out.

I also am very pleased to be part of the Health Committee. We work very constructively together, and I hope we will on this. We have got a very tight deadline and, as the chair, Simon O’Connor, said before, we are going to make every effort to endeavour to have this done by the Tuesday after Queen’s Birthday. Thank you.

The next call is a split call. Denise Roche—5 minutes.

I am delighted to take this short call for the Greens on the Care and Support Worker (Pay Equity) Settlement Bill. It is, indeed, a historic day. This settlement has come to the House after a massive scrap. We heard from my colleague earlier about the generations that it has taken to get this pay equity settlement legislation to the House today, and I want to acknowledge that, too. I want to acknowledge all the women who have worked on this. I am particularly thinking not only of Kristine Bartlett and the members of the E tū union, the Nurses Organisation, and the Public Service Association Inc. but also of our late, great mate, Helen Kelly.

This settlement is going to make a huge, huge difference to the lives of these women. We should actually acknowledge that this Government and the industry itself have known for decades that they have relied on the exploitation of these workers in the care sector. They have relied on the exploitation of their labour, of their emotional labour, and of their commitment to their clients. They have known that, and yet despite that—despite that—these workers have been willing to get together to work with their unions and to take the case to court, and they have been fought there, by the Government no less, and they have won. It is a victory.

I think it was Martin Luther King who actually said that “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”, and it is the same for workers’ rights. It is the same for pay equity. It would never have been handed over voluntarily without Kristine Bartlett, without E tū union, and without the generations of women and workers who fought for this historic settlement.

We have got an ageing workforce in the care sector, and this settlement may go some way towards ensuring that there is a career pathway for younger people to come through and to work in what is, essentially, a really fulfilling occupation. I have done it myself—4 years of it. It is really hard work. To have your pay lifted from $15.75 an hour to $23 an hour is an acknowledgment, finally, of the worth of that work. It is darned demanding. It is, essentially, supporting our most vulnerable citizens in this country to live lives of dignity. Now the women workers will finally receive some of that dignity because their status will be improved through the recognition in their pay packets that they are actually worth it—finally.

I can talk about the qualifications, but, actually, care workers have been able to get qualifications for a very long time. It is just that they have not been able to get access to them from some of their employers, and they have not been paid for them by some of their employers. Despite this settlement and the fact that it has been negotiated as a tripartite agreement, we still have the situation where the ratification meetings are occurring right now—E tū union organisers are working with delegates right across the country, doing about a thousand ratification meetings. We have got sort of ratbag employers who are making a mint, who are making profits out of the aged-care sector—employers like Rymans Healthcare and Oceania Group—that are saying: “Well, we’re not going to let you have a ratification meeting so that the workers can vote to accept this remarkable settlement. We’re not going to let you do that unless we have managers and our staff in the room.” So it is still there. We still have to have our unions, and we have to have our unions continually fighting for the rights of our people in their workplaces.

I am joining with the other parties in the House to actually celebrate what is essentially a remarkable settlement. It would never ever have been achieved without Kristine Bartlett or without E tū union, particularly, getting together and making it happen. So we are really delighted to be supporting this bill through the rest of the process.

I call Sue Moroney—5 minutes.

It is with genuine excitement that I rise to support this bill today and to celebrate this historic victory for women and their unions, because that is, no doubt, what has happened. It feels quite emotional actually, because I still recall, on the first day of the Employment Court hearing, standing with other women to welcome Kristine Bartlett as she walked into the courtroom in Auckland. I think it was 2012; it seems like an awful long time ago. I had a big bouquet of flowers with me to present to her on behalf of the Labour women’s caucus because we felt so strongly about the importance of that case.

I have often—because I have done a few media interviews on this issue over the course of that time when people have wanted to ask “Well, you know, why should women get paid more?” and all of those sorts of things—referred to Kristine Bartlett as the Erin Brockovich of New Zealand. That is how it feels to me. She is this actually quite small, but fiercely determined woman who took on that Government, who took on her employer, who took on the patriarchy, actually—she and her union and all of the members of those unions—and won. They won the day. And I am looking forward to seeing the dramatisation à la Erin Brockovich—I do not know who is playing Kristine Bartlett; who is going to play her—and seeing, actually, the story recorded behind this wonderful victory, because it has been an awfully long time coming.

People may or may not know that prior to coming into Parliament, I spent most of my working time actually representing staff in rest homes. I worked for the New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO) based in Hamilton for about a dozen years. That seems to be about the amount of time that I spend in a job these days—a dozen years. It seems to be my limit. I was bargaining and negotiating, and representing healthcare assistants and nurses working in rest homes for that period of time, and it was a battle that I have taken on for many years—to try to get this group of mainly female workers recognised for the extremely hard and important work that they do. This work of looking after the most vulnerable in our society—our precious elderly—is not only physically draining and physically challenging; it is also emotionally challenging, intellectually challenging, and mentally challenging. When you think about all those factors that go into providing that expert care and love and support for our elderly, is it not about time we recognised the value of that?

I want to recognise the unions who took this case to the court. I want to particularly recognise—well, I have to call it E tū, but I am a bit kind of old-fashioned so I am going to say the servos. I am going to say the servos. That is my union, and I feel exceptionally proud of the role that it played in being at the forefront of this. But there also is the Public Service Association and the NZNO, my old union, as well, and their role in this, and the Council of Trade Unions. They all worked very strategically together to make sure that this win succeeded. I know that at times they would have had their hearts in their mouths because it was actually a leap of faith, really, to sit down with a Tory Government and negotiate their way through this. But they took up that challenge, they did it, and they have won the day.

It took far too long. What was the Crown doing actually getting in the way of that? What was the Crown doing arguing against them in the court when it should have been supporting these women and their families—and, in fact, the men who work in those female-dominated occupations as well? But here is the real problem: if that National Government had not repealed the 1990 pay equity Act brought in by the previous Labour Government—if it had not done that in 1990—you know, all those families would have had pay equity more than a decade ago. They would have had it in 1990-91, and their families, those generations of those children who have been brought up in next to poverty conditions, would not have suffered that if that Government had actually left that Act in place.

It is a great opportunity for me to stand in support of this bill, and I would like to just say congratulations. I acknowledge Kristine Bartlett and everyone who has actually been involved in this process. What a day to actually rise to speak. The first Budget of the Hon Steven Joyce was delivered, and it is going to be delivering for New Zealand families, delivering for New Zealand businesses, and, most importantly, supporting New Zealand’s aspirations.

The care and support worker bill will be a historic, $2 billion settlement for healthcare workers of New Zealand and will ensure thousands of hard-working people will be recognised for the work that they do in our care facilities and disabled and special needs communities. They will be paid fairly, as other members have actually said—and deservedly so—for the amazing job that they do. Pay rates will rise for full-time workers and will reach up to around $100 extra per week. That is more than $5,000 a year, making a tangible difference to those workers’ lives and their families’ lives.

This settlement, reached by the funders of care and support such as the Crown, ACC, and local district health boards, as well as by unions representing care and support workers and health and care workers, is an important acknowledgment of the role those workers play and will no doubt reduce the high turnover that comes with our care and support workers job sector. I also want to acknowledge the work of the New Zealand Aged Care Association, the Home and Community Health Association, and the New Zealand Disability Support Network, which all played a vital role in reaching this agreement over the past 20 months—apart from those that were already actually mentioned by other members. The work involves long hours and hard effort, and I am pleased that we as a National-led Government were able to provide this excellent outcome for the industry.

The settlement, of course, is also an important milestone for pay equity, as the workforce in this sector is made up of mostly female employees and, as other members have actually said, we celebrate the pay equity that is finally reached for those women workers who are in this sector. More than half of them have been working part time at an average wage of $16 to $18 per hour. Providing a real, practical way of recognising their service and supporting their aspirations is important to me, and ensuring that we acknowledge that work that involves similar skills, responsibility conditions, and degrees of effort is able to be paid in kind to similar work performed by the opposite gender. So maybe one day we will actually get to an era when women’s work is recognised and we will all be celebrating that, I am sure.

This bill will also allow for the Government to help providers invest in training their staff, providing incentives of real qualifications to expand their industry knowledge and formal skill sets. This will include access to relevant New Zealand Qualifications Authority health and well-being certificate study, or its equivalent, for employees working long term in the field and will make a difference to their ability to do the job professionally.

National and this Government are working for aspirational New Zealanders. We are there for the lowest-paid workers, and you can actually tell that by looking at the Budget that has been delivered today. There have been tax change announcements putting more money in the pockets of New Zealand households and providing more support for growing families.

I would like to commend the Care and Support Worker (Pay Equity) Settlement Bill to the House, and, like the $3.9 billion spending and the increase to Vote Health and ACC and to New Zealand’s health sector announced today, it will be delivering to New Zealand. I commend the bill to the House.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Today is a day of celebration, and I want to acknowledge, as the speakers before me have done, Kristine Bartlett, the servos, the Public Service Association, and the New Zealand Nurses Organisation. It is your day. Congratulations. Ā, tēnā koe, mihi mahana ki a koutou.

[Thank you, and a warm acknowledgment to you collectively.]

Thank you so much for all the hard work that you have done to bring this bill to the House, to bring this to a conclusion.

I have one word for the Government and its role in this, and that is “Whatever.” This is actually not about your hard work; this hard work belongs to those workers who work very hard every single day caring for our elderly and our most vulnerable, and to the unions that support them, which have fought for them long and hard.

Why I say that is because on reviewing the regulatory impact statement this afternoon, I am reminded of a couple of things. The first thing I am reminded of is that, actually, one of the first principles of pay equity is this: because the work is predominantly performed by women, care and support workers are paid less than a man performing work involving similar skills, responsibility, conditions, and degrees of effort would be paid. Where in this discussion is the comparator? That has been an issue that we have wanted resolved, because until we can decide on a comparator, not within the same sector but outside the sector, we are going to continue to have these arguments going down the line.

This Government has been kicking and screaming, not only about this piece of legislation but about the legislation on the travel time between work and about the sleepover conditions, which have been hard fought for and won by this sector and by the workers and their unions. So I say to this Government, whatever. Whatever. Nearly 2 years it took of discussion behind the scenes because it could not stomach what the court would eventually settle.

I go back to the regulatory impact statement. When we look in the regulatory impact statement at “Court determines pay rates for care and support workers”, “With any of the options, the resulting change in pay rates to address pay equity for these workers …”, “One of the key outcomes being sought is to achieve a sustainable equitable pay structure …”, and “A court determined solution as in Option 4 …”, what do we find? It is redacted—all redacted. So the Government knew what the cost would be if it was actually going to put in place what is actually deserved by the workers who work in the care and support industry in this country. It knows. The only information that we get on pay rates is actually the schedule that appears in the legislation, and here it is—the schedule that was fought for and won by our workers. That is the only information we have. All the rest of the information has been redacted.

However, I do want to be constructive because I am on the Health Committee, so there are four clauses in this legislation that I want us to examine. I have had a chance to look at the legislation and there are four clauses that I think require further examination.

The first one is about weekend and penal rates—clause 9—where we no longer have a penal rate as a percentage of an hourly rate. What will happen for some workers is that the penal rate will be the dollar value as it occurs in their current agreement, before the new legislation is put in place. For example, for somebody who is currently on $18, the penal rate for time and a half—or whatever the half-rate is—is $9. So if they go to the new pay rates and they get an increase to $21, their penal rate will continue to be $9. I want to see whether we can actually examine the fairness of that proposition.

The other thing I think we need to look at is clause 7, which looks at extinguishing the existing claims and bars potential future claims. I think we should examine whether this is actually fair, because there may be in future negotiations something that comes up that we have not anticipated, and this clause extinguishes the right to any future claims under that.

Clause 10 is about any agreements that might have been made in previous agreements, so any hard-fought-for conditions that might potentially have transferred over into new agreements are now also not going to be enforced. There may have been some conditions that have been grandparented over in the past and they are no longer actually going to be available to workers, so I think we need to examine that and the fairness of that.

The last thing is the definition that occurs in clause 4 of “continuous employment”. “Continuous employment” in this legislation appears to be only employment with the same employer, or when that staff member transfers to a new employer that, I presume, has purchased that business. So the potential for that, I guess, is that if you change employers, you could be working in the industry for several years or several decades and still achieve only the first two pay rates on this scale. So I think, as a select committee, we have the opportunity to examine that. A truncated period—yes, it is—but I think we will actually be able to tease that out and ensure we get those clauses right in the legislation.

In the few minutes I have got left, I actually want to tell a story about a caregiver whom I knew, because I used to work in this area myself a few years ago. A caregiver whom I knew worked in an elder-care facility that had a dementia unit, where many of the clients had Alzheimer’s. This staff member turned up for work, walked through the door, and she still had her handbag wrapped around her arm as she walked through the door, and she saw a client of hers walking towards her—an elderly lady. She walked up to that elderly lady and grabbed her by the hands. She held her hands within hers and she rubbed them, and she looked into her eyes and she talked to her for a good couple of minutes. It was a really lovely exchange because it actually showed how much she cared for that person.

Afterwards, after she had put her bag down and got herself ready for her day, I asked her why she did that. She said to me that a lot of people in our rest homes and in our care facilities often do not have families visit. This particular lady probably would not remember her tomorrow, but she felt like she had to provide some care and love to her.

I think the story of that woman says exactly what we want to acknowledge and support and value, which is that what they do every single day is provide a little bit of love and a lot of care to people who ordinarily might not get it otherwise. I think every member in this House, when we are a little bit older and we might be dribbling into our soup, would want care workers who, like that woman, take the time to just share a little bit of love with their clients.

Today is about unions. This is what good, strong unions can achieve. Unionisation is about supporting our best workers and supporting those who do the difficult jobs and who actually deserve to be paid the most. This is also about women and, for me, it is really important to acknowledge that this is about Pacific women—Pacific women who have worked for many years in this industry. Today they get a little bit more of what they deserve, which is going some way to their getting a living wage and a decent wage.

So I am really proud to support this bill. I hope that in the future the Government will really acknowledge that what it has done is that it has perhaps negotiated away some of those rights that the women in this industry do deserve, but in the interests of their sector, they have decided to forgo them. We support this bill. We support those workers. We celebrate the unions. Thank you very much.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Health Committee.

I move, That the Care and Support Worker (Pay Equity) Settlement Bill be reported to the House by 6 June 2017 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, despite Standing Orders 191 and 194(1)(b) and (c).

Motion agreed to.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.