Care and Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlement Bill

on behalf of the Minister of Health: I move, That the Care and Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlement Bill be now read a third time. Thank you to everyone involved in the consideration of this bill. A large number of people have worked very hard in a short period to make sure this legislation could make its way through the House, and that it does what was agreed. Before that, 20 months of negotiations culminated in the historic agreement that is implemented by this legislation.

There is $2 billion over 5 years to increase wages for around 55,000 hard-working, predominantly female, health workers who care for some of New Zealand’s most vulnerable people. Let me thank, again, everyone involved in the negotiations: the unions—the Public Service Association, the New Zealand Nurses Organisation, and the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions; the employer associations—the Aged Care Association, the Home and Community Health Association, and the New Zealand Disability Support Network; the Crown negotiator; and the many officials who supported negotiations. I know I speak for all members of this House when I once again thank Kristine Bartlett.

This negotiation means that from 1 July around 55,000 care and support workers will receive pay rises of between 15 and 50 percent. For a full-time worker this means that they will be taking home at least $100 extra a week, or more than $5,000 a year. For the 20,000 care and support workers currently on the minimum wage at $15.75 per hour it means that they will move to at least $19 per hour. That is a 21 percent pay rise. Because this industry has a large number of workers without formal qualifications but with lots of experience, current workers will be moved to positions on the new pay scale that reflect that experience. For workers employed after 1 July, the wages will be based on that worker’s level of qualification.

An important part of the settlement and legislation is that workers will be supported to gain higher qualifications. That provision for training is a vital part of this agreement and will, over time, lead to a workforce with much higher qualifications, which is good for everyone. Questions were asked in the Health Committee about the training requirements, so I would like to talk about them briefly. The legislation requires employers to take reasonably practical steps to ensure that a care and support worker is able to attain qualifications. What is reasonably practical depends on the circumstances, and we expect there will be a flexible approach suited to the needs of the workers and the clients. This will include facilitating online and on-the-job training, time off for training and examinations, course fees, and the like. In other words, this workforce should have the same opportunities for up-skilling as other New Zealand workforces.

The Crown is funding employers to the tune of 2 days per full-time equivalent employee, as a contribution towards the additional costs. As well as working hard to get the settlement and legislation in place, there is also a lot of hard work going on to make sure that everything will be ready for care and support workers to get the agreed wage increase from 1 July. The Ministry of Health and ACC have a lot of work under way to support funders and employers, to implement the settlement and legislation. The ministry has held information sessions around New Zealand for employers. It has released guidance tools to help work out who should be paid what rate, and to move workers to the new pay scale. It has set up an implementation helpdesk to help employers understand their obligations and to support them in making the necessary business arrangements to pay their staff the wages that they are entitled to.

The ministry will be making advance payments to providers to ensure that they have the funds available to make the payments. Support for providers and employees is also available through district health boards; unions; other Government agencies, like the Inland Revenue Department and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment; and the care and support industry’s peak bodies.

I acknowledge that employers have raised concerns about the amount of funding they will receive. These are perfectly legitimate issues to raise, and the Government expects them to be addressed in contract negotiations, which are ongoing. But we need to remember that the Crown has negotiated and funded a settlement that addresses a significant legal and financial risk faced by employers, including the risk that the courts would have backdated pay equity increases to 2012.

Most importantly, we need to remember that this settlement means that some of the most dedicated and caring workers in this country will be paid fairly. Thank you.

I rise with enormous pleasure on the third reading of this bill—a bill that has been well traversed, I hope, and robustly discussed, I hope, despite the truncated process. At the end of the day, this is to give effect to the settlement that the unions fought long and hard for. In that regard, while there has been some discussion about the potential for back-pay being lost, and other conditions, actually what this will do is it will put money in the pockets of women and other workers in the aged-care service, and that is the important thing to acknowledge.

This puts into effect the settlement that the unions have negotiated on behalf of their members, and I am enormously proud to have been a very small part of this process. It was a really interesting process. It was a truncated process. However, I believe we actually had really robust discussions at the Health Committee. I hope we had sufficient time to consider all of the implications of this particular legislation. We were certainly given a few nights in which to filter through and think about the implications of this. We may get some things wrong. There may be some things that we have missed out. But I know that we have thought about this and thought about all the aspects of this particular legislation, and I hope that we have done our best to get it right.

There are a couple of things that I do want to point out. This will impact 55,000 workers. It is an enormous settlement and enormously important. There has been much talk about the extinguishing of rights, and what has had to therefore go in order to ensure that these workers actually get the pay that they deserve. I will not spend too much time on that, but it has been about negotiation and it has been about putting the interests of those workers to the forefront, to ensure that their pay rates were moved to a rate that actually shows how much we value them as workers.

There were employers and providers who came to the select committee who talked about the cost impact on their businesses. But every single one of them actually knew the value of the workers who were in their employ. They made the point that despite the fact that in the legislation we say we are contributing towards the costs to employers—I believe that the amendment that Jan Logie has tabled, which unfortunately did not pass, actually highlighted a point that there are some employers out there who will do what they can to not honour the terms of this agreement. That is a useful point for us to actually try to underline, where we can, the opportunity to encourage those employers to live up to the expectations of acting in good faith. So thank you Jan for attempting to do that. I know that that is now on the record, so anyone reviewing this legislation will know what was intended by that Supplementary Order Paper.

There was a lot of discussion around relativity—that the people who will benefit from this legislation may, in fact, be paid more than their supervisors or other people in the workplace, such as junior nurses. That is a matter for the employers to deal with and address if they do not want to lose their staff, who may move into care and support work because it advantages them in their pay packet. That is something that will be an issue. It is a pressure on the sector and it is something that I hope this Government will work its way towards supporting, so that we can continue to have really sound support, particularly for our vulnerable older people.

The aspect of training, and the support for training to get our staff qualified to level 4, is extraordinary and one that we really support, and one that I hope the workers take up in huge numbers, because it is to their benefit.

I just want to talk about one or two other things before I hand over to others to make some final comments in this third reading. The first really is about the idea of pay equity. From the outset there have been lots of discussions about what pay equity is about. We know that this is a settlement agreement—this is not necessarily about pay equity—but I do not want the principle of pay equity to be lost. The principle of pay equity is to ensure that in industries where the work is done largely by women, we are paid the same rate as we would be if we were working in industries where we could have a comparator with men. We have not done that in this case and that is a discussion—we have lost the opportunity in this case—that we must continue to have. In order to address some of the social harms in our community, particularly that of poverty of our children, we must continue the fight around pay equity, and I hope it is not lost.

In my first reading speech I talked about a support worker in the industry whom I knew and who showed me what this is all about. When coming into work one day in a dementia unit, one of her clients immediately came towards her. The support worker had not even had the chance to sit down and have a cup of tea. This support worker grabbed the woman by her hands and held her hands in hers and talked to her for a few minutes. It was a really lovely exchange and it spoke to me about the care that our support workers have for people who are not even their family members. Thank goodness that they do, because all of us may, at some point in our life, be in the situation where we are cared for by people who are not our family members, and do not we want those people to be just like that support worker whom I knew?

The thing that we cannot thank those care and support workers enough for is the amount of love that they give to people every single day. They are worth twice, three times, a hundred times what we are paying them, but today we are going to celebrate and acknowledge them. They are finally going to have a little bit of what they deserve, and we do not want to hold up the passage of this bill. On 1 July let us hope that you enjoy what you get in your pay packet, because you justly deserve it. Thank you.

I am very pleased to take what I think will be a relatively short call in this, the third reading. I say “short” probably for two reasons. One is that we have traversed in a rather truncated period of time—as I think the member who has just resumed her seat, Poto Williams, had indicated—the issues quite well. I think the second element is that this is a bill through which we want to bring about a settlement that comes into effect on 1 July, so I think speediness is part of the process.

Look, this is a good bill. It is a good bill, first and foremost, because it is serving a good sector of the community. I think we have heard in many discussions throughout this process about the work that those in the care and support sector do. I think it has been well explained. In fact, I was hearing Louisa Wall earlier in the Committee stage as she explained her own experience there. I think that is typical of many of the stories that have been discussed here and shared with the Health Committee, sometimes in voice, certainly through email. So this is a good bill because it seeks to do good things for good people. As I had noted in the first and second readings, my thanks are to all of those who work in this sector tirelessly day after day. To Kristine Bartlett, whom I can see in the gallery there—thank you for your efforts. Thank you for your work with the unions, and for then working cooperatively with the providers and the Crown to come to this arrangement.

I think, fundamentally, as I have repeated a few times, this bill brings about an agreement. Those negotiations were not undertaken by this House. They have been undertaken in good faith by the various groups working together, and I think we have landed in a very positive space. The committee worked quite hard to bring about just some very minor changes. Again, they have been touched upon quite quickly and, I think, articulately in the Committee stage. They are relatively self-explanatory. As I had noted in my second reading speech, there was some feedback, particularly from providers, with some concerns. There are other avenues that will be addressing those.

I do have to say, there is no underfunding in the health sector. I know that that drum gets beaten a lot, and also I do not think it is appropriate to be beating it. I think there is no need to be beating that drum in this space as well. I think politicking at this particular important moment for the care and health sector to try to push a political agenda that does not stack up is not helpful.

I really just want to acknowledge again everyone who has been involved. I am very pleased that we have got to this space. I think it is an incredibly important piece of legislation and, as this Parliament anticipates winding up later in the year, I think this is something it can be rightly proud of.

Well, today really, really is the day to celebrate. We have talked a lot about celebrating, throughout the progress of this bill through the House, but today is truly the day to celebrate the end—well, it is one end. It is probably not the end, but it is one end of an astonishingly long process that has been undertaken by care and support workers over a very, very long period of time.

I have done it before, but I am going to do it again: I want to get on the record one more time just what an effort it has taken, from both the unionised workforce in the care and support sector and their unions, to actually get to this point. Going back a long way, there was a thing called the A Fair Share for Aged Care campaign. There were things that happened before then as well, but that is as far back as I think we have got time to go today. Going all the way back to the A Fair Share for Aged Care Campaign—it was a campaign to raise awareness amongst politicians, to raise awareness amongst the public, and to encourage employers to do the right thing, and it was an attempt to try to bring everybody together to deal with the chronic low wages in the care and support sector. As part of that, a petition was gathered with well in excess of 40,000 signatures. I cannot remember exactly how many signatures it had, but there were well in excess of 40,000 signatures. That petition was brought to Parliament. There were presentations to a select committee here at Parliament.

There were various attempts by the unionised carers and nurses to establish multi-employer collective agreements. One of the developments over that time was that more and more of the sector fell under the auspices of larger chain employers, so we saw a reduction in the number of small, stand-alone, what people call mum and dad outfits, I suppose, and more of the large chains taking over—often, chains owned by private equity. That actually created an opportunity, if not for multi-employer collective agreements, for collective agreements that affected a much larger group of workers.

All of these were developments along the way, but it never really sort of cracked the nut. It never really dealt with the very, very low wages in the sector. Then the unions came up with a master stroke, and that was to go to court and demonstrate that the care and support workforce, being largely female, was being discriminated against, and that that was the breach of the Equal Pay Act. Kristine Bartlett—the wonderful Kristine Bartlett—stepped up and was the face of that court battle. Peter Cranney stepped up as well and was the lawyer—a wonderful union lawyer who has taken a number of cases on behalf of working people in New Zealand.

💬 Grant Robertson: A number.

A number—a very large number; I cannot count that high.

Through the efforts of those court battles—funded by unions, funded by the membership fees of unionised workers across New Zealand—the unions and Kristine demonstrated that there was discrimination under the Equal Pay Act. Despite appeals, despite efforts to have that decision quashed, we eventually got to the point where the courts said: “There’s going to have to be a significant change to the pay rates.” That was the point at which the Government said: “Let’s get around the table. Let’s get around the table and negotiate this.” What happened then was something that I think we need to see a lot more of, and that was employers from across the sectors, unions representing workers from across the sectors, and the Government sitting down and negotiating a deal.

As members have often acknowledged through this debate, that deal involved give and take on both sides. The unions representing the workers were actually prepared to give away a lot, particularly in back-pay. But this is not a settlement that recognises all the disadvantage that has occurred over the years. Some members have compared it to Treaty settlements, and I think that is right—that, actually, it is an agreement that looks towards the future, even if it does not necessarily deal with all the damage that has been done in the past. I think we should be very appreciative of the care and support workforce in that it has been prepared to forgo quite a lot in order to get a settlement, in order to draw a line under the past, and in order to look forward and move forward.

The unions, the employers, and the Government got around a table. A settlement was reached, and now this House is enacting that settlement with legislation. That is a fantastic model. It is the model that has been used to solve this claim, but it is absolutely a model that could be used to solve low pay across a number of sectors in the future. Workers should not have to go to court to get that. Actually, it is something—

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: We agree with that. We agree.

—that should be available to working people, and the Minister agrees. I am very pleased to hear that—that the Minister agrees that this sort of industry-standard bargaining should happen and should be available to every worker in New Zealand. It is important to get that on the record. That is something that we look forward to in the future—that this type of industry-standard bargaining should be available to everybody.

This is a fantastic outcome. It is going to make a very, very real difference to the lives of tens of thousands of, mostly, women—but not just women; men and women—working in the care and support sector. It not only recognises their contribution; it also recognises that caring for our elderly is a skilled job, is an important job, and is a job that we should be attracting the most talented people to.

For too long we have relied on people forgoing the better wages that they could be earning in other sectors because they love the work they do and they love the people whom they care for. We have taken advantage of that love. Today we recognise that that was wrong, and it is not what is going to happen in the future. I want to say thank you for the work that our carers do. I want to say a particular thankyou to those who have held the line over the years—those who have stayed in the union, who have paid their membership fee, who have been part of the campaign, who have strategised in the campaign, and who have talked with their workmates and their family and the people in their communities about the importance of this campaign, the importance of pay equity, and the importance of paying care and support workers properly.

It has been tough. There have been times when it looked like the campaign would not come to an end—that the solution would not be found. But people have held the line, they have stuck to it, and we have finally got here. Now that we have got here, the rewards of that effort are being shared with carers, whether they have been unionised or not. That is also something that should be acknowledged—that those people who have fought so hard are now sharing their victory with everybody else in their sector.

This is a good day. This is a very good day. It is the result of a lot of hard work from a lot of different people. It is the result of Government and employers and workers coming together and finding a solution. I have acknowledged the workers, I have acknowledged the unions, I have acknowledged the legal battle; I also want to acknowledge the Government officials who have supported the bargaining and the officials who have supported the processing—the fine-tuning—of this legislation over a fairly shortened period. I want to acknowledge that we in this House have put all our effort into ensuring that this legislation passes so that that money can get into the pockets of those workers as soon as possible.

This is good. Let us ensure that when we come to address issues of pay equity in the future, we get it right—that we do not withhold this type of win from any other groups who seek a settlement under the Equal Pay Act. Let us also look at this model of industry-standard bargaining and use it to solve the chronic low pay that exists in New Zealand. I commend this bill to the House.

It is a pleasure to stand and take a call on this third reading of the Care and Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlement Bill. For the last 2 weeks the Health Committee has been part of a very focused process, and it has heard a lot over the last 2 weeks about the lead-up to this process. Again, it is a great day to celebrate for all of us, but for Kristine Bartlett, a special mention here, because Kristine was the lady who brought this to bear.

What I want to say is that we talk about quick processes—and it has been a very quick process—but it has been a very thorough process, and it has been a very considered process by the select committee. There has been the engagement of parties all across the House to ensure that we got this reported back to the House on time, so that we could be here today doing this final reading, so that we can move on with the job.

So, as the last speaker, Iain Lees-Galloway, said, it is a day to celebrate. It is in the vicinity of $2 billion to be paid out to 55,000 very deserving care workers, who look after approximately 110,000 of New Zealand’s most vulnerable people. It is very rewarding to stand here and be able to speak on this reading. I cannot think of a more deserving bunch of people to be accepting this payment.

Because we have done what is very much the last piece of the process, I think it is worth making a note and commendation to all of those people who negotiated in this process. There is always a bit of give and take—there would have been give and take on both sides—and I think it is really commendable that this process has been brought to us in the House.

I also want to say that it is always a pleasure to be part of the Health Committee. The last couple of weeks have been no exception. It is a good select committee. We work well when we have got jobs to do, and particularly when under pressure.

I want to make note, again, of the officials. I know this has been said time and time again, but we often sent them away and said “Look, can you report back to us at a certain time?”, and every time they did that. They have done a fantastic job. They worked hard. I also just want to make note of the submitters who came to the process too, because they came in with a very focused agenda and were very certain about the submissions that they wanted to make. They were very aligned and it made such a huge difference. It was a big help to the process that we have just undertaken. It is a pleasure to commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

It is such an honour to rise and speak to this bill. This is such a historic moment in New Zealand’s history, and to get to stand up and speak to this—I am a little bit overwhelmed by the fact that I get to do this.

First of all, I want to add my thanks to Kristine Bartlett; my union E tū, also joined by the New Zealand Public Service Association and the New Zealand Nurses Organisation; and, of course, Peter Cranney, the lawyer who started this crusade in the courts; and to name John Ryall and Cee Payne and Erin Polaczuk and Alastair Duncan, and, of course, Helen Kelly, who was loved by all of us and who was a critical part in this process. I also want to acknowledge some of the non-union women in terms of Prue Hyman, Linda Hill, and Martha Coleman who have been fighting this fight and providing the context and the support for this for a very long time.

This is indeed a result of over 120 years of women’s and unions’ struggle to get to our first pay equity settlement out of our equal pay legislation. This is worth celebrating. While I say that, I do acknowledge that this is a settlement, and there are some details in that that I will go through in a minute. But I do want to talk just briefly about why pay equity is so important. It is kind of like it should not need to be said, but it probably does. Pay equity is ensuring that women get equal pay for the work of equal value to male-dominated professions. It is about giving those women dignity, enabling them to live lives that reflect the value of their work.

So often in this process I heard from women who were almost embarrassed to talk about the money. So often—and this is probably an issue—it was not so much about the money; it was actually having the acknowledgment of their value and the importance of the work. For me, there is something about—this is a righting of an imbalance in our society, about us actually getting the chance to say that caring matters. For us as a country, we want people to care for each other, and that is something that needs valuing. For me, this is at the heart of pay equity. It is about getting our values in line and making sure that our society reflects, and our people’s pay reflects, what is just bloody important.

I also just want to say that it is, obviously, around addressing inequality and gender-based inequality, but this will, in this settlement, also have positive outcomes for ethnic inequalities in our society. It is worth celebrating on that point as well.

This piece of legislation is the legislative expression of a settlement that was achieved by the unions and the Government, and it will increase, from 1 July—very, very soon—the pay rates for some workers to $23.50. Most of those workers will be on or around the minimum wage at the moment. Within 5 years those on the level 4 qualification will get up to $27 per hour for their work. We do not know whether that is exactly pay equity, because the comparator work was not done through this process, but we know that this is a pretty good step towards equality, and I am not going to be curmudgeonly enough not to celebrate that. It is a pretty incredible achievement.

We do have to acknowledge that the Government was brought kicking and screaming to this process, all lawyered up and fighting it every step of the way, and it is lovely to hear the Government members stand up and say: “Two billion dollars—aren’t we great? This is amazing.” I hope that this side of the House just sits with that experience of how good it feels to acknowledge the value of undervalued and exploited women, and to end that exploitation, because there is a whole bunch of other women waiting, and their time has come. I am so looking forward to seeing the legislation in this House to support social workers, to support school support workers, to support hospital administrators—to support all of them to get the dignity that they deserve. Just remember how good it feels to do the right thing, and go into your negotiations with that feeling and an open mind.

There are some other details in the legislation that it is worth touching on, because they have been kind of controversial. One of them is around the funding, and the point has been made that a lot of the providers said to us that this is not covering all the costs, that it is not covering the oncosts or the full cost of training costs or accrued leave costs or the internal relativities in terms of the fact that the managers’ pay will probably have to go up. Our understanding is that this legislation is to enact the settlement, so those aspects were not part of the settlement, and it is not appropriate for them to have been. This is just about enacting the settlement, but the Government has to make sure that these providers, those other costs that have been acknowledged in this process, will be funded through the next contract.

We do acknowledge that there is a tension in this process, and that we have set up a system that will encourage people to settle their contracts because that is the only way that they are going to get those additional costs addressed. People need to know, and the Government needs to know, that we are watching. We are watching that process, and we do not want good, not-for-profit, community-based, ethical providers, who want to do well by their staff and their clients, to close down because you are not willing to pay the proper cost of the oncosts of this.

I also want to say to employers, in terms of this, that I put up an amendment to clarify that you are legally not able to cut workers’ hours because of the increase in pay. That amendment did not go through, and I hope it did not go through—and I am going to put it on the record that it did not—because that is the law as it is at the moment, and it was just a restating of it. I want those employers—and I have heard of two today that have already said that from 1 July hours will be cut—to know that the unions will be watching you. If there are any workers out there who are not in their unions who are watching this, then union up and make sure that we can hold your employer to account. We will, in this House, be supporting that process.

I do want to say, I guess to finish up, that we are conscious of the Government bringing new legislation to the House soon that—from the draft we saw of it—will make this process more difficult. I know the Government disputes that, but everyone I have spoken to who has been involved in this process has said that that is what is contained in that legislation. Everyone who is celebrating this amazing moment for us as a country to express our values and what is important to us should stand up to make sure that that right—this process, this moment—is not taken away from any other worker.

Finally, just to go back to what this is all about and to just give my thanks to all of these women—and the men—who have done this work for the years and years and years of love and care and heartache and stress that you have, and, you know, the personal cost that you have borne through this exploitation, and the difficulty of surviving on minimum wage and doing this work. I want to say on behalf of myself that I am sorry it has taken this long, and credit to you for getting it here. You deserve this and more.

I am left with the memory of visiting a care service where an old man was saying thank you to his caregivers, and at the end of his speech he stumbled. The caregivers were there in a second and bringing him back to his seat and they made everything all right. He was a man who had been a public servant, had been erudite, and had grown into his life, and now he was completely reliant on these women for kindness and for his ability to be with dignity. For us to be able to acknowledge those workers today in providing dignity is a thing of beauty.

I just want to add in my third reading speech tonight what New Zealand First’s position was, actually, in the first reading. It was that we, at that stage, could only guarantee our support of this bill to go the select committee. That was actually quite specifically due to the fact that we were quite concerned that these women were forced to forgo their rights and their justice in order for them to not look like they were a burden on this country. As I said in my second reading speech, it was really important for me to get information back from Kristine Bartlett, E tū, submitters from the New Zealand Nurses Organisation, and from the providers who were here that the negotiations between the Crown, E tū, and the industry were actually carried out in good faith. That was really quite important to me—that those negotiations were carried out in good faith.

I want to express how proud I was when the realisation came to the forefront throughout that process that these negotiations were carried out in good faith. Admittedly—and I said this in my second reading speech—sometimes in life we have to lose some to win some, but we get back up again and we try again. That, effectively, is what this settlement bill is about. It is about recognising the hard work and how 5 years ago court proceedings were brought to the forefront and one worker—one worker—by the name of Kristine Bartlett had to fight for her rights with her employer.

I want to say that it has been mentioned in calls that in life it is quite extraordinary when a female stands up and is a leader to other females in this country. So I am half expecting that this will turn into a movie. I am half expecting that my daughter and her grandchildren and our sons and our daughters of the future will have a look at what happened in our country, where we were one of the first countries in the world to give women the right to vote. I do hope that it is picked up. I do hope that we get to see a blockbuster, because I think we deserve it. I think that Kristine deserves it, I think that the union deserves it, and I think that all the care and support workers within the sector deserve it, because their voices have been heard.

I want to talk about Jan Logie’s amendment, although I know that—

💬 Hon Members: “Loogie”?

—inside of that bill it was covered under—oh, sorry—the legislation. One of those things has been the fear factor, where some employers have already said that they are going to have to cut back their employees’ time due to the fact that this bill will be an excessive cost to them. I kind of want to also stand up and say that we will continue to watch, to make sure that this does not happen.

I come from an industry where I earned $3.20 per hour. My childcare costs were $3.60. I was in debt before I even got out of bed. Do you know what I was? I am still very proud of what I had as a trade. I was a hairdresser. So I know what it is like to pinch and save. I know what it is like to put the clients first. I know what it is like to actually struggle—really struggle—to even put food on the table because of the ridiculous wages that you earn. So I have been in your place. I do want to say that we smartened up in the hairdressing industry and we worked with our industry training provider to ensure that there were minimum standards for wages for our apprentices. So, you know, I kind of had to suck it up too for quite a long time—but I am not sucking it up now.

I am really happy to see that the Minister stood up and explained to the House about the 11 amendments that were suggested through the Health Committee—to actually move them forward as a Supplementary Order Paper. I wanted to note, because I found it quite extraordinary—and it is not often that a special process is taken due to the fact, as other members have said, of the limited time frame that we had to work with in order to process this bill to allow it to come to fruition, and to make sure that the care and support and workers were paid, effectively, correctly from 1 July—that we were advised to use the same process previously taken when the Hurunui earthquakes legislation was read and taken through that same process.

So although it has been kind of extraordinary that we have moved quite quickly through this bill, overall I do feel that because of what we were able to ascertain from submitters, and because of the fact that we worked quite collectively as a committee and decided that the best thing was to bring the changes through in one document, through the Supplementary Order Paper, into the Committee stage, I want to say, and others have said it, that the working relationship between the advisers was amazing. They helped someone like me, who was not too up-to-date with legislation and certain words, understand quite quickly. They actually clarified so many worries that we had in terms of the fact that we did not want to make any bad decisions. We wanted them to be right for the workers, for Kristine, and for the union. So it was quite essential.

I just want to say that the work that we all did as committee members—and Poto Williams put forward some really valid concerns and information, so I guess we were all quite lucky, actually, to work together to make sure that we got this bill back in the House in a timely manner, and that we got to the third reading tonight.

I want to not take up much time, so that I can witness this monumental moment happen today in the House. I want to say that New Zealand First is proud to support this bill in its third and final reading, and we wish you all the luck in the future.

It is a great privilege for me to take a call in this third reading of a bill that is going to mark a huge milestone, I think, in the battle for pay equity. I do so in my capacity as Minister for ACC, as a funder of this settlement. There has been a small part played in that respect. But as Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety there is a bridge, actually, between this legislation and the pay equity legislation that I am working on now and hope to bring to the House within a very short period. I want to address some of the issues that have been raised through this bill, in respect of what the future might look like. But, thirdly, as a former employer of care and support workers in the aged-care sector, I have certainly seen up close and am in awe of the tremendous work that is done by the 55,000 workers in this sector.

There were a couple of comments made, one of which I strongly agree with and then one I strongly disagree with. The first one was that we would not be here but for the unions. Of that, there is no doubt. They have led a battle—firstly the Service and Food Workers Union, E tū, and then its support affiliates and the Council of Trade Unions (CTU)—to take a novel approach to a difficult problem, one that resulted in what I think was one of the more intelligent and thoughtful Court of Appeal decisions that I have ever read.

The second is that—and Jan Logie used these words; this is verbatim—the Government was led “kicking and screaming” to this point. I would say that nothing could be further from the truth. I will explain why I say that. For a start, the Government was not a party to those proceedings, except as an intervener. The Government has chosen to become far more involved than it previously was. Secondly, Mr Lees-Galloway said that the court said that there had to be a pay rise. Well, actually, that is not what the court said. All the determination did was it said that section 9 of the Equal Pay Act required that the pay should be equal for work of equal value. It was a milestone decision that led us back to the start—not quite. But after years of that process, the section 9 principles process would have begun. It is my view that had the parties to that transaction been left alone, it was possible for it to take years.

It was not a case where the Government was led, kicking and screaming. My Cabinet colleagues and I agreed that that was not fair; that that was not appropriate. It was necessary, appropriate, and the right thing to do to take it out of the court—and that is why I agreed with the comment Mr Lees-Galloway made—and negotiate a settlement. So that was the first thing the Government did.

The second thing the Government did was it set up the Joint Working Group on Pay Equity Principles, led by Dame Patsy Reddy and supported by Business New Zealand, the CTU, and with, I thought, very good support from the State Services Commission and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. It had the challenging task of trying to come to an agreement on what those pay equity principles and processes should be, and I think it did a fantastic job.

There were a couple of areas where it could not agree. Comparators is one, and I will address that in a minute. But it came up with a robust process and set of principles that I believe the new bill has been highly faithful to. But I would stress—and I appreciate the feedback that we are getting already. Some of the hyperbole, I think, has been something of an overreaction. But it is just that—it is a draft. There will be amendments to that bill before it gets to first reading, and there will be changes to it, I have no doubt, as it goes through that process.

But I do want to touch on a couple of things that were said, and particularly the belief that had the pay equity legislation that I am preparing now been in place during the TerraNova Homes and Care negotiations, the settlement—which this bill gives effect to—could not have been reached. I reject that, and I think, with some reasons, I will refute it.

There are a couple of quite big areas that have been talked about through the passage of this bill, and one is arrears—back-pay. The Equal Pay Act 1972 provides for back-pay. There is also a need to pay back-pay or arrears where the employer, by act or omission, has contrived to pay less than it had committed to or that the law requires. Both of those examples will continue, and, indeed, if an employment agreement expires and there is a negotiated process, it is often the case that arrears—because it has taken time to bargain—are also payable. None of those things will change.

Pay equity is different. In a pay equity claim those conditions do not exist. The employer has paid exactly what it has committed to in the employment agreement and to which the employee and/or their unions have agreed. So I am really keen to listen to the arguments for arrears in those situations, but I am not swayed by the arguments that have been made, notwithstanding that Jan Logie said, in the second reading, that my comments were nonsense.

The other area is the comparator principle. The Employment Court did consider the issue. It was asked the question: is the authority of the court entitled to have regard to what is paid to males in other industries? It went on to answer that question by saying that the court may be entitled, if those inquiries of other employees of the same employer or of other employers in the same or similar enterprise or industry or sector would be an inappropriate comparator group.

I read that to mean start close, and if you cannot find an appropriate comparator group, look outside. The Court of Appeal ultimately found that that answer was not wrong in law. The bill that we have got now—and, indeed, the negotiation process that gives effect to this bill—does just that. It uses a comparator within the industry, but, firstly, it has to be male-dominated. So if there are concerns that there is some kind of tainting in an industry, well, it cannot be used if it is not male-dominated, and the bill will, I think, define what that means in the future.

All of that is a bit pointy-headed and, some might argue, not necessary or appropriate for today, because today is a day of celebration. But I do want to give the House the assurance that this is a very important milestone on the journey. We have got a long way to go to achieve the outcome we all want, which is equity without bias, without discrimination. I am confident that we are going to be able to get there.

Congratulations to the union. Congratulations to Kristine Bartlett on leading that, and being the face and the name behind an important campaign. This is a very good day. I commend the bill.

Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker, and thank you. I rise to take a short call for the Greens on this, the final and third reading of the Care and Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlement Bill, and it is a privilege to do so. I want to start my short contribution by paying tribute to all those women who joined together to make this happen, and that includes the women who are in the gallery today. That includes Kristine Bartlett, who was the spearhead and the figurehead for the legal campaign that paved the way for this. Also, I want to acknowledge the generations of women who have contributed to this over decades.

I want to thank all these women, and these women who are with us today. I want to thank them for joining together to get to this part, to get to this success. By bringing their power together, they have actually shown that when you work together and you look after each other, you can achieve great things, and that essentially, you cannot really do that by yourself. What we have before us today, this settlement, will have an impact on the pay packets of 55,000 women. Not all of those women got together to do it, but the women who are in their unions, the women who have paid their union fees, the women who have worked for this and worked in this sector for years and years and years, and the women before them, and the unions that worked with them before that as well—all these people need to be acknowledged. We need to celebrate the fact that together this settlement—this marvellous settlement—is coming through.

I also want to acknowledge that this settlement does not stop here, that it paves a way forward as well. It is not just for the 55,000 women; it is for our daughters and their daughters, and women in other sectors as well who will be coming up. The social workers, the education support workers—they will be coming through, and our daughters and our daughters’ daughters will benefit from that. So give Kristine Bartlett a Wonder Woman badge from us, thank you.

I said in my second reading speech that this settlement is very similar to a Treaty claims settlement. I just want to revisit that again, because it is. What we always say with a Treaty claims settlement is that it is not a full and final settlement, and in this case it is not, because the issue of back-pay has been ignored. It has been deliberately put to one side in order for a payment to happen that will raise the pay rates for women workers in the care and support sector, now and into the future. We are OK with that, but we need to acknowledge that the back-pay is not happening. Actually, it is the fact that back-pay would have been on the table if it had gone to court—that was the issue that brought the Government to these negotiations. I am sorry that we have not been able to have that conversation with the Minister.

The other thing that we say in a Treaty settlement is that we need to acknowledge the generosity of the people who have been involved, because of the work that they have put into achieving the settlement. That is the unions, that is the workers, that is Kristine Bartlett, that is all the effort that has gone into that. So we need to accept the generosity and the labour that has gone into it, and acknowledge it. The other thing is that we say that it is a deal. It is the best deal we can possibly get, and we should also acknowledge that. We do, but we also celebrate it, in this case.

The thing with Treaty settlement bills, though, is that there is usually an apology. I was listening very carefully. I was listening for that apology, and I did not hear it. But there should be an apology, because women workers have been ripped off for decades. They have been absolutely ripped off, and employers have known this. They have known it. Judy McGregor’s report Caring Counts expressed very clearly the exploitation of workers—the emotional and physical exploitation—that occurred in this sector. And we never heard “Sorry.” The unions never heard “Sorry.”, and Kristine never heard “Sorry.” But do you know what? On 1 July, in your pay packets, women, there will be a “Sorry.” So we want to thank you. We will be supporting this bill.

I am reminded of—thinking back to 2012—when I had the privilege of being outside the Employment Court in Auckland, waiting for Kristine Bartlett to join us to go for her first day in court for this historic settlement that we are celebrating today. I remember being there with a whole lot of other women, and the sisterly comradeship while we waited for Kristine to turn up—I had never seen her before, actually, at the point. I had a big bunch of flowers for her from the Labour women’s caucus, because we were so excited about the beginning of that journey. I still remember, Kristine, when you walked around the corner, and suddenly there were TV cameras in your face, there were flashes going off. I saw the look on Kristine’s face of “Oh my goodness, what have I got myself in for?”. It was just wonderful to be able to step forward and to put some flowers into your arms. I saw you relax at that moment. You went: “Oh, OK, flowers. I can do this.”

It was so remarkable to watch that journey from 2012, and, of course, the journey went for decades before that as well. As I stand here today, I want to think that Kate Sheppard would be pretty pleased with what we are debating here—Kate Sheppard and the suffragettes and all the women who have come in between in that time, saying that it should be the type of thing that we are debating in this House, and it is actually happening today. I want to pay a tribute to all of those women who have been involved in this journey over those decades.

I want to pay a tribute to the unions, to E tū, in particular—but I still cannot quite get used to that. I am going to say the Service and Food Workers Union, because that is my old union. I just say that that was the union that actually said: “Yes, we’re going to test this. We’re going to take this case, and we’re going to test that Equal Pay Act of 1972.” It was very wise. It took Peter Cranney with them, who has got a very fine record in bringing about amazing settlements—amazing decisions, I should say—in courts, which have made a real difference to New Zealand workers and, importantly, to their families.

What we are debating here today—actually, it is great that there is no debate; we are all saying this is fantastic. But the real outcome of this is not just for women workers but for women workers and their families. I also am waiting to hear the apology from that Government for the families that they have left in poverty because National repealed in 1991 the pay equity Act of 1990. It was brought in by the previous Labour Government. As the first act of vitriol of the incoming National Government in 1991, it repealed that Act. If it had not repealed that Act, then there would have been decades of women and their families who would have already benefited from this, and New Zealand would look like a better country—the better country that it can be, and should be. So I hope this is the beginning of putting that right, but Michael Woodhouse is right—we have got some way to go.

My voice is about to give out on me, so I want to conclude by recognising that this has been a journey that has involved a lot of women and some men—some very brave men, and some very principled men—who have joined us in this battle to say it is not OK to undervalue women’s work because it happens to be women who perform that work. Today is the beginning of our starting to get this right, but we have got a battle coming up ahead with that next bit of legislation to make sure that other women workers can benefit as well, so that the work that they do is valued for the skill that is involved and for the grunt that is involved in their work, and so that what they bring to their labour—their toil and their sweat—will actually be valued not on the basis of gender, but on the basis of the work that they do and the value that it represents. Well done to everyone who has been involved in this. Let us keep this going.

It is a great privilege to rise to speak in the third reading of this bill. Sometimes as a member of Parliament who is contributing in a third reading on a Thursday afternoon when everybody is actually in agreement, it almost feels like it is my responsibility to just say: “I commend the bill.” Having said that, I just want to make a couple of comments.

This bill gives effect to the elements of the care and support workers pay equity settlement. As part of that settlement, the parties agreed that certain measures would be provided for in legislation. This bill actually does that, and everyone has talked about that.

I would like to commend the work of the unions, as everyone else has said, but I just remembered a book that I read a little while ago. I think it was called Lean In, by Sheryl Sandberg, and I think all sisters within this Chamber understand that sometimes the equity issue that we are fighting for as women, and it has been fought for for generations—sometimes the responsibility lies in ourselves. We often do not demand the right—

💬 Denise Roche: Oh, for God’s sake!

No, no, hear me out. Sometimes we do not demand the right to be equal to men. I am not suggesting that men are awful characters who treat women badly or unequally, but it is awful that women do not actually get the same rights sometimes, and I think it is a real shame that women do not get paid the same amount. I think this bill actually puts right what was wrong in this particular sector, and I am very happy to support that. But sometimes it is also our responsibility, I believe, to demand the right to be equal, and often women are too generous. Sometimes we just let it go, and I think it is time for us women—sisterhood—to actually lean in and support—

💬 Denise Roche: Oh!

—the other women as well. “Oh!”, she says. Maybe she does not want to support other women. Thank you. I think it is a great bill and it is a celebration that we are having in this Chamber. I commend the bill.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. Ngā mihi ki a koutou katoa. I am really proud to speak in this, the third reading of the Care and Support Worker (Pay Equity) Settlement Bill. I want to take the opportunity to acknowledge the partners to this settlement agreement, and I am going to read them out—I do not think we have fully acknowledged who you all are. The parties are Her Majesty the Queen in right of New Zealand, acting by and through the Director-General of Health, as funder of district health boards and employers; the Accident Compensation Corporation, as funder of employers; the district health boards, as funders of employers; and the employee representatives, which are E tū Inc., the New Zealand Public Service Association Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga Mahi Inc., and the New Zealand Nurses Organisation Inc., representing employees, in association with the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions Te Kauae Kaimahi Inc., as an interested party.

I also want to take this opportunity to thank the Health Committee and also the Minister of Health and the officials and the House, because we stand united in support of this piece of legislation. I was just looking on the E tū website, and one of the posters I saw said that E tū was standing up for justice, and that is what we are doing today. We are standing up for justice.

Who are care and support workers? I actually think we should define that—this is the third reading. They are, from the careers.govt.nz website, our “Kaiāwhina Tapuhi/Kaimahi Atiwhai”, and what do they do? They provide “assistance, support and care to people in a variety of health, welfare and community settings, and in their homes.” That is the definition of the people who will benefit from the legislation that we will pass very shortly.

I just want in this third reading to reinforce what I said in my speech in the Committee stage, and that is that under the good-faith clause, which is clause 10 in the collective agreement, it is going to be incumbent on the Director-General of Health as the funder of the district health boards, and on the Accident Compensation Corporation and on the district health boards, which fund the employers, that in no way should employees be detrimentally affected by this piece of legislation and that no hours should be lost. Again, I want to reiterate that Jan Logie’s amendment was really an insurance policy, but it is actually already in here, and if that happens, it is a breach of this agreement. I want us, as a House, to note that and acknowledge it, and to ensure that if hours are cut, then the appropriate action will be taking place against the employers that are contracted by those parties to this agreement. That is why I decided to highlight it.

I have actually decided that I am not going to take my full call. Again, I want to acknowledge the 55,000 women and men—although I must admit that in the Bupa Hayman care and rest home that I attended, I did not see any male care and support workers. But I know that they are out there, and so this is for everybody who works in the profession. I want to thank them and acknowledge them for the wonderful work that they do.

Really, for me, I am going to leave the last words of my contribution to an amazing woman called Kristine Bartlett. I would like to quote her: “This is a huge victory, not just for me but for the thousands of care workers—not just today but for many years to come.” Kia ora tātou.

I join others in echoing support for this bill. Like the previous speaker, Louisa Wall, I too will reduce my call to three very brief points.

Firstly, I am very pleased for the care and support workers. They are so deserving. I have worked with them as a clinician for many years, and I acknowledge their value and admire their skills. Secondly, I want to briefly reflect on the impact of this bill for Northland. The economic impact for the 2,000-plus Northland healthcare workers, at an extra $100 per week, is $10.5 million into the local economy per annum, notwithstanding what that means for every single family that gets to make better and more life choices with more money in their pockets.

In the theme of expediency and getting this good bill along, the last point I really want to say is—I want to conclude with what the E tū union representative said to the Health Committee: “How many workers get a guaranteed pay increase, for the next 5 years, of 8 to 9 percent? These workers do. They deserve it.” Let us make this law. Thank you.

Bill read a third time.

Waiata