Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlements Amendment Bill

on behalf of the Minister of Health: I move, That the Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlements Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Health Committee to consider this bill, and for the committee to report back to the House by 15 October 2019.

The bill makes an important amendment to the Care and Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlement Act 2017, by rightly including mental health and addiction support workers. It also corrects the formula within the existing Act and formalises the ongoing payment of care and support worker rates to vocational disability workers employed by Oranga Tamariki and the Ministry of Social Development.

The original Care and Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlement Act was an historic settlement for workers in aged care, disability, and home and community support sectors in 2017. That settlement arose from a claim lodged by Kristine Bartlett in the Employment Court seven years ago, which was supported by the Service and Food Workers Union—now called E tū. Ms Bartlett argued that a care and support worker was paid less because the work is predominantly performed by women, compared with what would be paid for a role performed predominantly by men with similar skills, responsibilities, conditions, and degrees of effort.

The outcome was a victory for the workers and for the unions, that generously shared the benefits across the industry with those who are union members and those who are not. The hard-fought settlement fairly recognised the important and historically under-valued work that care and support workers performed. A similar settlement was agreed with Oranga Tamariki and the Ministry of Social Development, covering vocational disability workers.

In 2017, the Labour Party supported the settlement and the passage of the Care and Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlement Act because it delivered increased wage rates to 55,000 care and support workers, and linked those rates to care and support workers’ qualifications and skills. The 2017 settlement and legislation excluded mental health and addiction support workers. This time, the Public Service Association (PSA) and E tū jointly led the charge and filed a claim with the Employment Relations Authority, seeking to have mental health and addiction support workers paid the same rates as their care and support worker colleagues.

Discussion dragged on and it was not until the election of this Government that real progress was made. Our Government believes mental health and addiction support workers deserve pay rates equal to their peers working in care and support roles. That’s why in June 2018, Cabinet approved extending the 2017 Act to cover about 5,000 mental health and addiction support workers. This decision clearly demonstrates the Government’s firm commitment to pay equity and lifting wages for this very valuable workforce. Improving mental health and addiction outcomes for people living in Aotearoa New Zealand is a top priory for this Government. Paying a fair wage to those who support and help New Zealanders when they are most vulnerable is an important step along the way. We believe that all people deserve a fair go, which is why we have committed to supporting the historically under-valued workers in this sector.

The Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlements Amendment Bill does not make any changes to the existing Act that would affect the rights that it provides to care and support workers. It formalises the mental health and addiction support worker settlement, which was signed last year. It removes the exclusion of mental health and addiction support workers from the existing Act and, quite rightly, increases their pay rates from 1 July 2017—the same date that the care and support worker wage rates were increased.

Mental health and addiction support workers should have been included in the existing Act since 1 July 2017. They should have been receiving the same minimum wage rates and education opportunities as fellow care and support workers, as well as guaranteed funding for their employers. This has now been rectified. Eligible mental health and addiction support workers have received back-pay to 1 July 2017. The settlement delivers more than higher wages to those deserving workers. By better recognising the importance of the mental health and addiction support workforce and the value of a highly trained and capable workforce, people needing their care and support will benefit. Likewise, employers who receive funding to offset the cost of higher wages will have a more stable and capable workforce.

It’s important to acknowledge those that helped us reach this point today. Firstly, we acknowledge the courage and the perseverance of Ms Bartlett. Her brave actions have made a significant difference for so many thousands of workers around New Zealand and to those they care for and support. I know the Minister and this Government want to thank her. Also, we want to acknowledge the parties and the contributors to the original care and support workers settlement who paved the way forward—including E tū, the Public Service Association, the New Zealand Nurses Organisation, and the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions; and, of course, the employers’ associations consisting of the Aged Care Association, the Home and Community Health Association, and the New Zealand Disability Support Network. I would also like to thank those who determinedly progressed the case for the wrongly excluded mental health and addiction support workers. They include the unions, E tū and the PSA; the provider representatives, specifically Platform Trust, and all the agencies who were involved in the settlement negotiations, including ACC, Ministry of Social Development, Oranga Tamariki, Department of Corrections, as well as district health boards and the Ministry of Health.

I’m pleased to be able to present this bill here today. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It’s my pleasure to rise and take a call on the first reading of the Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlement Amendment Bill. I do so wearing a number of present and past hats: firstly, as the spokesperson for health for the National Party but also as the former Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety, and Minister of ACC at the time the original bill was passed. So it does give me some pleasure to indicate to the House that the National Party will be supporting this bill at first reading and sees no barriers to that continued support through its passage. As a member of the Health Committee, I look forward to what I expect will be very collegial discussions around, hopefully, the speedy passage of this into law.

I do, however, take some issue with the Minister who moved the motion, the Hon Willie Jackson, and his slightly revisionist reflection on the degree to which mental health workers were somehow cruelly left out of the Terranova settlement in 2017. I should remind the House that, as the Minister said, that was a settlement that involved 55,000 care and support workers, almost entirely in the aged-care sector, and the grand sum—the eye-watering sum, actually—of $2.3 billion for that very important workforce. Actually, as immigration spokesperson and former Minister of Immigration, one of the really pleasing aspects of this settlement was that it took, I think, quite a bit of pressure off a number of aged-care providers in their challenge of recruiting domestic workers into this important industry. That’s certainly a goal of the Minister who’s just resumed his seat, Willie Jackson, as Minister of Employment, and we certainly agree that, to the degree possible, New Zealanders should be at the front of the queue for the growing number of jobs in the aged-care sector.

But we are talking about mental health workers, and the Minister said, “They should have been included in the original claim”. They were “wrongly excluded”. Now, I wasn’t the Minister of Health at the time this settlement was agreed, but I was in Cabinet and I did follow the debate closely. I went back to both the select committee report into the original Terranova settlement, and Care and Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlement Act in 2017. There was no mention in the select committee report of mental health workers. In the very positive third reading of that bill, there were over 10,500 words spoken and entered into the Hansard—there wasn’t a single mention, not one word mentioned, of mental health workers. So to portray this as suddenly an issue where they were cruelly left on the margins of a negotiation is just simply not true. Not a single member of the Labour caucus of that time actually raised it through the bill passage process.

Now, somehow, in Government they see an inequity and fix it. But, in fact, this was an entirely separate process. The mental health workers had filed a separate claim under section 9 of the Equal Pay Act and were proceeding along the lines, not dissimilar to the process that was set out by the recommendations of the joint working group on pay equity. It was appropriate that it be pulled into this Act because that was the speediest resolution to the problem. But I reject the notion that, somehow, the previous Government had cruelly excluded them from the negotiation process. I note Ms Logie shaking her head; I have no doubt that we will hear a completely different version of events including—well, let me guess how that’s going to go. I predict—Nostradamus-like prediction though it will be—that she will say that the previous Government was led kicking and screaming into settlements.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: No, through court, actually.

Actually—well, Ms Dyson says through court. Well, actually, the previous Government was very aware that had it not intervened, had it not decided to settle by a different means, then those parties—and the Government wasn’t one of them—would still be in court deciding what section 9 meant, setting out what the principles for equal pay would be. Our conservative estimate—because it would have been appealed to the Court of Appeal, it would have gone to the Supreme Court—was that the earliest that that could have been settled by the court process was about 2021 or 2022.

💬 Hon Nicky Wagner: We fast-tracked it.

So we fast-tracked it—that’s right, Mrs Wagner. We worked faster because we knew that this workforce deserved that kind of remedy. The second thing we’re going to hear, I have no doubt, is that, somehow, we then closed the door. We lifted up the ladder and let nobody else through by the bill that was thrown out by this Government, actually—the Equal Pay Amendment Bill.

💬 Hon Nicky Wagner: It’ll be faster if they take it.

Well, we’ve traversed that. We’ll never agree. We’ll never see eye to eye on that.

There is one thing I think we need to be cautious about though: there is a limit to the number of settlements that we can link off the Terranova settlement because, actually, each of these industries does have its own features, and the merits of that stand alone. Now, we may disagree with what the merit standards should be and, indeed, the Government unashamedly wants to lower the bar to a claim—that’s fine. That’s their prerogative. That’s the discussion that’s going on in the Education and Workforce Committee. But I was visiting a mental healthcare provider, a residential provider in Auckland last year, and they pointed out something that’s quite problematic to the way in which this settlement is reached—that is the degree to which the required qualifications, in order to get to the top tier of the pay scale, are not relevant to mental healthcare and support workers. They are generic qualifications that were more suited to aged care. What they were having to do in order to ensure that their workers would get the access to the higher wages by the level four qualification was go and do qualifications that were entirely unsuitable for somebody in the mental health workforce. I think the select committee needs to have a look at that. The select committee does need to have a look and make sure that whatever agreement is put in place, whatever law is passed, those qualification criteria are fit for that workforce, not a generic or aged-care - related workforce.

But with that in mind—and something that we will need to do in committee—I’m very pleased to say that we strongly support this. We certainly support the workers and the extra pay that they, I think, already have that this codifies, and we commend the bill.

Talofa lava. I am delighted to stand today and take a call on the first reading of the Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlement Amendment Bill. This bill amends the principal Act, the Care and Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlement Act 2017, which increased the pay rates of care and support workers in aged and disability residential care, and home and community support services. So this bill adds mental health and addiction support workers to the principal Act.

What a day for this bill to come to the House. I have here in my hand a copy of He Ara Oranga, the report on the Government inquiry into mental health and addiction. We’ve heard today the announcement from the Hon David Clark and the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern about our response to mental health and the addiction inquiry, and tomorrow we’ll see a wellbeing Budget. This is part of the picture of what we need to do in this country around our mental health services. So I’m so very proud to be standing alongside this Government to actually put the dollar into the front-line staff who deliver vital services and are a vital part of the picture.

These workers should never have been left out. I have heard what the Hon Michael Woodhouse has said, but what we know is that the work is so very similar, and what we know is the workforce is so very similar—namely, minimum wage work, predominantly women. The picture is so very similar. Therefore, it is right that we correct this—I believe—injustice. They’re doing the analogous work. They’re there alongside those workers that Kristine Bartlett fought for which resulted in that settlement. The Hon Michael Woodhouse spoke and said that, you know, no doubt we will talk about the rewriting of history, but we know it took seven years. We know the settlement took a very long time, and, in fact, we know that that settlement was directed in the end, and it had to happen. So, as a consequence, we are not rewriting history; we’re just talking about the history.

So ensuring our mental health and addiction workers are paid what they deserve will help deliver a robust workforce. Look, we’ve inherited a groaning health system, and part of the work that these workers do is very difficult work. It’s hard work; it’s complex work in many, many ways. This work is, in fact, hard, and sometimes dirty, and it deserves to be paid well. It is a proud day for our Government to be putting our people and their wellbeing in place.

I want to talk very briefly about the way that as women in society we are often underpaid, and the fact that this legislation will be retrospective in that it will go back to 1 July 2017. I think that it is, no matter the time that this will take to get through the House—although I take from the Hon Michael Woodhouse’s comments that this will be fully supported across the House, and that we and the Health Committee will work very closely together to speed this bill through the House—still important that this occurs.

I want to, finally, just make final concluding comments about the unions E tū and the New Zealand Public Service Association. Essentially, with the work alongside employers—alongside the employers, who are absolutely supportive of this legislation as well—we have come to a place where this bill has been drafted with the support of the community. I think that that is a really important matter to discuss. I think it’s really important because those employers saw the types of work that these people were doing, they saw the payouts that were occurring for the same level of work in other workforces, and have come to this agreement. With that, I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I’m rising to take a relatively brief call in this first reading debate, wearing my hat as the National Party’s workplace relations and safety spokesperson and not as a member of the Health Committee, because it will be the Health Committee that considers this bill.

I listened carefully to the contributions we’ve had so far, and in particular I listened to that contribution from my colleague the Hon Michael Woodhouse, who, of course, was, in the previous Government, the very competent and capable Minister responsible for the principal Act which this piece of legislation seeks to amend. I listened carefully to his speech because I thought that he correctly and precisely gave a historic perspective of how we came to be attaching these sectors of care workers into this piece of legislation and attaching it to the principal Act.

I was surprised to hear both the Minister who spoke first, the Hon Willie Jackson, and then the new member who has just resumed her seat, Angie Warren-Clark, speaking clearly from notes that have been, I suspect, researched from people who weren’t part of that history in the last Parliament, because, clearly, they have got a revisionist view of history. Michael Woodhouse in his presentation made the point that nowhere in all the debates on that principal Act—nowhere in that—was there any single mention by any of the then Labour Opposition members to these sectors of care workers. So it’s been a day of shambles and chaos in the Government, and I thought that they might be trying to regain some form of equilibrium with this bill, but it seems, no, they want to double down and rewrite history as we go through.

So this is a bill that, as Michael Woodhouse indicated, we are going to support through first reading to select committee, and we don’t actually see any fundamental roadblocks or impediments to the bill proceeding through every stage. Essentially, what this bill seeks to do is to round out the previous settlement agreements. Of course, it was the National Government at the time that, back in June 2017, passed the principal Act. As Michael Woodhouse said, that was a historic piece of legislation that involved the receipt by some 55,000 care workers of an eye-wateringly large payment of $2.3 billion, and it recognised that the work that they had been doing in the aged and disability residential care sector had been, historically, and for a long period of time, underpaid. This bill gives effect to the agreement in respect to vocational and disability support workers—that was an agreement that was signed back by the last Government in July 2017—and it also gives effect to the mental health and addiction support workers through an agreement signed in July 2018. The primary purpose of those agreements is to address those historic inequities and to achieve pay equity in a consistent and clear manner across the support services sector.

The Terranova case was referred to by a couple of previous speakers. That followed a pay equity claim that was eventually agreed to, and it was on the basis that those workers had been systematically underpaid, primarily because it was predominantly work done by women. That’s a matter relating to another piece of legislation currently before this House, and it will be back before long for a second reading.

So I don’t want to prolong this debate, because we do support it, but I might, just before I sit down, with your indulgence, Madam Assistant Speaker, acknowledge the folk that are gathering in the gallery to hear the maiden speech of my colleague Paulo Garcia. I know that they’ve travelled far and wide from across the country to this Parliament to be part of a significant and historic day, and in about three-quarters of an hour they’re going to hear a fine and uplifting speech from a wonderful new member of this Parliament. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I’d just like to start by acknowledging the collegiality that the House is showing in relation to passing this bill through today and the support that it’s gained. I think it’s a very, very needed and necessary amendment to a piece of legislation that went through under the previous Government, and I’m certainly not going to sit here and try and blamestorm what was, essentially, an area that was missed and now we’ve got the opportunity to fix up.

So here we are today to talk about the Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlements Amendment Bill, which is a tidy-up, really, of the main legislation, which is the Care and Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlement Act from 2017. The reality is that I don’t think there’s a single person in New Zealand that doesn’t sit out there and acknowledge the hard work that goes on behind the scenes to ensure that our mental health workers are doing a great job in providing huge amounts of service. We all acknowledge the fact that they have been under-rewarded for their hard work and diligence in this field, and this is the opportunity that we’ve got to tidy that anomaly up. The reality is that, as it’s already been articulated, the Terranova case, when it was finally settled after Kristine Bartlett brought it to the floor—and it did take a number of years to get resolved—the significant fund of $2.3 billion that was actually put to tidy that up was a very historical moment for the history of New Zealand.

However, this part is essential: that we actually tidy up this anomaly. We are talking about mental health addiction, and we’re taking it very, very seriously—the vocational and disability support workers along with the effect and the elements settled from the mental health and addiction support workers also.

New Zealand First is only going to be taking a short call on this, and we want to see it going through the select committee process. Our Health Committee will be looking at this, hearing from submitters and working through this very, very diligently. We certainly will be commending this bill through the House to make sure that it’s expedited in the true fashion and the pace that it deserves. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

Thank you so much, Madam Assistant Speaker, for the opportunity to speak on this particular bill in its first reading. Talofa lava—it is Samoan Language Week—but I’d also like to say magandang gabi to all those who are gathering up in the gallery here as we debate this particular bill. They’re not here to listen to this bill particularly, I would say, but they certainly are here to listen to Paulo Garcia. I don’t get to speak—he’s the one who will get to speak very soon, and we are very much looking forward to New Zealand Parliament’s first Filipino representative. We are very proud of him. I will be speaking to the bill any moment now.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Thank you. I would appreciate that.

So you can see what we’re about to have at 5.45. Magandang gabi.

This bill rounds out and gives effect to the historic agreements that were signed in regards to vocational and disability support workers back on 17 July 2017, and also mental health and addiction support workers in 2018. Those both were very historic, and we’ve had some very eloquent speakers prior to myself talking about the nature and the size of those agreements and, again, how historic they were. We are looking at this topic tonight, of course, because we have had, historically, an issue in New Zealand with systemically underpaying some work that is predominantly performed by women in this country.

If you look at the general policy statement (GPS) in regards to this bill, we can see that it was agreed by parties in settlement agreements that mental health and addiction support workers and vocational and disability support workers should form workforces that are analogous—that are similar to each other; and it’s off the back of, of course, the Terranova settlement—and that they should be joining up and that the principal Act should apply. So these workers—and this is what the bill is trying to do—are to be treated in a manner consistent with that Terranova settlement and also the principal Act.

So I’d just like to highlight a few items that the bill provides for. First is pay and training—can’t get anything too more fundamental than that in an industry, right? So mental health and addiction support workers and vocational and disability support workers will receive the agreed pay rates as a result of what happened and training that will be facilitated in a very similar manner between the two. That’s fantastic.

The bill also provides for enforcement, and that means that enforcement provisions in the case of a dispute or an employer’s failure to comply with the requirements of the principal Act will, of course, be able to be enforced amongst the two groups—another important and really helpful point for this particular piece of legislation.

There’s also, of course, extra funding. You can’t do this—you can’t pass this into legislation—without providing for the extra funding and support resources that are required. So the bill then goes on to ensure that Department of Corrections, Ministry of Social Development, and Oranga Tamariki are prepared to, or have the resources to, offset the additional costs imposed by the bill in regard to the workers.

Then, another point is that everyone receives these benefits—not just those who are unionised. It’s in regards to all workers. The support goes to everyone.

One other section in the bill is in regard to different definitions. Now, I expect that this will pass, because we’re supporting it. The House seems to be unanimous so far in this debate that there will be some discussions around this in select committee. There have, of course, been outlined in the bill different definitions—those for “care and support services”, in clause 7. For instance, it specifies the funders for care and support workers as being Ministry of Health, a district health board, or ACC. There’s also a change to paragraph (b) of the definition, which replaces “mental health services” with “mental health and addiction support services, vocational and disability support services, or services provided by a health practitioner”. So that’s again widening, making sure that these two groups are similar in the way that they’re being treated, and it’s adding clarity. That particular clause is adding clarity to what is not covered by the definition of care and support services.

My final point that I’d like to raise in terms of some of the elements that the bill is providing for is that there are straight-out new definitions for mental health and addiction support services, mental health and addiction support workers, support services, support workers, vocational and disability support services, and vocational and disability support workers. Now, that sounds like a whole lot of words, and it sounds almost repetitive, but you can imagine that in a select committee process this will be a topic for discussion and something that either submitters can agree with, tweak, or have their opinion on. That’s the democratic process that we have here in New Zealand which we appreciate, care about, and enjoy.

When you come to what was the beginning—the GPS—for the bill, it does outline significant legislative features, and there’s one there that is in regard to—I guess you could just call it—the topic of back-pay. I found that quite interesting because we have another strand that we’ve been working on and we will debate possibly in the next few weeks, and that is the Equal Pay Amendment Bill that we’ve been dealing with in the select committee that I’m housed in, which is the Education and Workforce Committee. So back-pay and transitional provisions are a key topic here in this bill but also, of course, a key topic in that bill.

In that particular bill that I refer to, the Equal Pay Amendment Bill, I think that it’s worth—especially since the Hon Michael Woodhouse referred to how some on the other side of the House have adopted a rather revisionist approach—talking about how we have come to this place to even be talking about pay equity and major settlements in New Zealand’s history.

We passed legislation—signed legislation—for the Terranova case back in 2017. We then went on in November to ask for a bill to be reintroduced in this new term of Government. It was not. It did not get transferred from our Government to this Government here. I had a member’s bill on pay equity that was drawn and then voted down, for which the Government could have supported in a select committee process and amended. And then, much to our surprise, six months later the Government reintroduced something to the House which was 99 percent of the same thing that they’d voted down earlier.

I know that that’s not this bill; it was that bill. But they are a concurrent process. We’re supporting both of them because it’s high time that we get to this point. It’s high time that there is a bargaining process that women in this country can utilise that allows them to stay away from a lengthy, protracted, drawn-out, and expensive court process when it comes to the all-important topic of receiving equal pay for the work that they are doing.

We support this particular bill, and we would like to thank the tireless service of women who are forerunners for this particular legislation, which recognises their true worth for the work that they are doing on behalf of New Zealand. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It’s with great pleasure that I get to offer the Green Party’s support for this piece of legislation, the Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlements Amendment Bill. Having spoken and been involved in the consideration of the previous legislation—and having had a very keen interest, as a woman in this country, in this area of work—I would just like to, in the context that there’s been a lot of discussion about the history, go into a little bit of the detail around why some people may consider the last Government was brought kicking and screaming to the Terranova settlement.

Some of the reasons would be that one of the very first actions of the National Government in 2009, when they came into power, was to disestablish the pay and employment equity unit that existed within Government, which had identified areas where there was a gap or a significant underpayment of women’s work in the public sector. That was one of their very first actions: to disestablish that unit and stop any action towards addressing the known underpayment of some women within the public sector. That doesn’t seem to me like they were enthusiastic in this work. Actually, they took actions to stop this work happening. It was not a priority for them.

Then, also, while we hear that the Government kind of short-circuited what could have been a lengthy legal process by coming to the table, I think there’s a point around this that people probably need to know, which is that the Crown supported the employers in the court processing. They intervened on their behalf, opposing Kristine Bartlett’s and the union’s case that the legislation could be used for pay equity. So, again, I don’t think we’re misrepresenting history by saying those actions add up to an obstruction of women’s claims for pay equity.

It was a significant moment when this House passed that first piece of legislation after such a long battle, with Kristine Bartlett out front, supported by E tū, the New Zealand Public Service Association, and the New Zealand Nurses Organisation. They did a phenomenal job of helping New Zealanders understand the size of the problem and making their case in court, to the point that, actually, the Government had to come to the table. It cannot be said enough, the profound benefit to this country of their work, because part of this discussion is about properly valuing women’s traditional work and ensuring that women feel valued for that work and are able to get the justified financial recompense for it. That benefits all of us as a country, because, predominantly, that work is caring work. When we don’t value that, we, in some ways, lose the heart of our society, because that is the work that links us all together and holds us all up.

So, again, in this piece of legislation, we are acknowledging the value of that caring work. We heard in some of the debate that on this side of the House, we’re revising history in saying that the mental health workers in particular were cruelly left out of that initial settlement in the legislation because nobody mentioned it in their speeches through that time. I would like to say that in my speech, I did say I was looking forward to seeing the next legislation and the celebration that was in this room at the time extended to the next cases of social workers and support workers and hospital administrators, as examples, knowing that, actually, the legislation was a specific implementation of bargaining that had happened between Government. That’s what it was, but prior to that, the Government had made a decision that the bargaining was just with the aged-care sector—that it was not to include the mental health workers or those disability support workers.

They had told us that this provided a real risk, because as we increased the pay for aged-care workers, it would make it harder for mental health workers to keep their staff, because they would be likely to transfer across into the aged-care sector, because there the caring would be recognised in their pay cheque and through the legislation. We heard that there was no way to rectify that at that point, because when considering legislation that is an outcome of negotiations, you can’t reopen the negotiations to a whole ‘nother group. That had to go through that process, but it was a failure of the previous Government, where they decided to exclude them and go for the narrow group. So it is really great to see this House rectifying that this evening.

I do want to just spend a moment to recognise what important work these people—mostly women—do. As has been acknowledged, today there are significant announcements around this Government’s commitment to the mental health of New Zealanders and for us to actually step up, to acknowledge that we have much, much more work to do as a country to help all of us flourish, and acknowledging how very many of us in this country have had, or do have, mental health challenges that we can all benefit from support with, that we need to do better, and that the staff doing this work covered by this bill today are central to ensuring a group of people’s wellbeing. I really want to acknowledge all of those workers—most of whom are women—for that work and the critical role they play in our collective wellbeing.

I would also just like to take a moment, as well, to acknowledge the next legislation that is due to come, which is about establishing a process for making pay equity claims that moves the process from the courtroom to the bargaining table, making it more accessible. I’m really looking forward to the momentum that we’re seeing with this piece of legislation continuing and gaining pace. When we do talk about the history and I talk about the National Government, I would also like to note that with the previous Labour Government, it took until the very end of their nine years for the pay and employment equity unit to get established. How encouraging it is to—

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Actually, that’s not quite true.

Well, near the end. We only got the settlements, in terms of the pay cases identified, near the end. So it’s really encouraging to me to see this work happening so early in the term of this Government, making the very clear commitment to see that progress roll out and gain momentum over the next decade of this Government—or the forms of this Government’s time in this House—because New Zealand women deserve to be appropriately recognised for their work, and, as a country, we all benefit when people are appropriately paid and when caring work is properly recognised.

Thank you very much, Madam Assistant Speaker. Talofa lava, and greetings to all our special guests in the House today. National supports this bill, and we support this bill because, actually, it’s an extension and a continuation of the work that National did back in 2017. It was the work that was done following the pay equity claim and the settlement agreement known as the Terranova settlement. Of course, that was the settlement that gave rise to the principal Act that we are amending today—the principal Act being the Care and Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlement Act, which was passed in June 2017.

As we’ve discussed today, the Terranova settlement was all about recognising the care and support workers, and recognising that they were being systematically underpaid—systematically underpaid—because the work was predominantly performed by women. Now, that’s something that we women workers, we female employees, are only too aware of. We find that—and I’d like to choose my adjectives carefully—disappointing, we find it discouraging, and we find it absolutely obnoxious, and I don’t think I can make that point strongly enough.

But what this bill does is include vocational and disability support workers in that legislation, and that was actually agreed not long after the original bill came through the House, by National in July 2017, and it also includes mental health and addiction support workers, and that was signed by the following Government a year later. But just going back to that original Terranova agreement, it was historic, and it was widely celebrated—widely celebrated by women, of course, but I actually think by the vast majority of New Zealanders. I will remember when that bill was passed, there was a real feeling of excitement and joy, and, as at the time I was the Minister for Disability Issues, there was a real understanding of what those care and disability support workers were doing, and that they absolutely deserved to have that pay.

So it’s quite right that this bill extends that recognition to the vocational and disability support workers, and to the mental health and addiction support workers. These people are just as hard-working, just as dedicated, and just as deserving as the original care and support workers. I’d just like to make one point: because it’s taken such a long time for this bill to get into the House, for this Government to finalise this bill, there are some very necessary and important transitional provisions in the bill. It’s extremely important that employers must back-pay these support workers who haven’t been covered by the principal Act, and that back-pay goes all the way back to July 2017—the commencement of the bill. So that only seems fair, I think, and I hope that the pleasure of receiving a significant lump sum payment will overcome the pain of not being paid fairly for those past months while this bill has taken a very lengthy journey to get here and to go through the House in the future.

So National supports this bill and notes it has been a long time coming, but we finally have a vehicle to recognise vocational and disability support workers, mental health and addiction support workers, and the valuable work that they do in our community. At long last, these people will have the same payment and the same conditions, as agreed by the care and support workers way back in 2017 by the national Government—hallelujah.

I understand this is a split call. Liz Craig, you have five minutes.

Talofa lava, Madam Assistant Speaker. It’s a pleasure to speak on this bill on the day that the Government has responded to the inquiry into mental health and addiction, because what this bill does is it extends the Care and Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlement Act to workers working in mental health and addiction support. So basically, what it does is it sets in legislation an agreement that was signed back in July 2018, which saw significant pay rises for many workers working in that field. So today, what I’d like to do is just briefly touch on the origins of the original Care and Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlement Act, before talking about what this Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlements Amendment Bill does.

In 2018, Kristine Bartlett became the New Zealander of the Year. Chief Judge Cameron Bennett, when he was commenting at the time, was just talking about what a deserving recipient she was, and his quote was, “At enormous personal sacrifice, [she] spearheaded the equal pay movement for caregivers in the aged-care sector. In doing so she has changed the lives of thousands of New Zealand’s lowest paid workers”. For those that are not familiar, Kristine worked as a carer in aged care for over 24 years, and, despite her skills, her experience, in 2011 she was only earning $14.46 an hour, which was just above the minimum wage.

So in 2012, Kristine, alongside E tū union, lodged a claim with the Employment Relations Authority, alleging that her employer was in breach of the Equal Pay Act. What the argument was was that caring support workers were being systematically underpaid, because the work was predominantly performed by women. Five years later, it took three court cases and two appeals, but in April 2017, the Government finally announced a $2 billion pay equity settlement, and that covered about 55,000 care and support workers, and that was in aged and disability residential care, and also home and community support services. So it took a really, really long time, but they got there.

But the resultant Act only covered those workers covered by the Ministry of Health, district health boards (DHBs), and ACC, and it actually specifically excluded mental health and addiction support workers. But what it did do is it established this whole matrix of pay rates that were linked to qualifications, and it was going to be phased in over five years. What that did, though, is it made significant changes to the lives of many of those workers, and they undertook a review. The report came out called the Value of Care. What they talked about in that report was that many care and support workers had seen quite big increases in their pay, and it had such a profound impact on their quality of life. So just reading a quote from that report, it says that “many we spoke to could now afford things that had caused great concern to them previously, like going to the doctor, the dentist, or new glasses”. Some were able to save up and visit relatives, travel—they hadn’t seen them for many years. Some of the workers who’d worked very, very long hours were able to reduce those hours, and then spend time with their own family, or in community activities. So it was having a huge, positive impact on their lives.

But as I was saying, that settlement only applied to those funded by the Ministry of Health, DHBs, and ACC, and there was a whole range of other workers who were doing equivalent work and weren’t eligible for the same settlement. So what this amendment bill does is it puts in law some of those settlements that were subsequently made to extend that. So what we’re doing here is extending, in legislation, the settlement to mental health and addiction support workers and vocational disability support workers. So basically, what this does is it allows them to have those same pay conditions, also the same structures in terms of training, and also some of those same provisions, including enforcement provisions where you end up in situations where there may be disputes. So this bill is a significant bill in that what it is going to be doing is helping address some of those historic inequities, and, basically, looking at a more consistent approach to pay equity across the support service sector. So I commend this bill to the House.

Madam Assistant Speaker, talofa lava, happy Samoan Language Week to you, and—let me just get this right—magandang tanghali, and a very special welcome to everybody who has come to see my colleague—oh, I may have butchered that, and my apologies—Paulo Garcia’s maiden speech. It’s going to be a historic occasion for New Zealand, and I welcome you to the gallery today.

I’d also like to just start by acknowledging the health Minister for bringing this bill and continuing this good work that the National-led Government started. Also, I’d like to pay and acknowledge the thousands and thousands of mental health workers in our community, and these addiction support workers—you do very important work for our communities. The challenges that these people deal with are tough, and I just want to commend these workers and the value that they give to our society.

So it’s a pleasure to rise in support of the Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlements Amendment Bill. Of course, this bill aims to extend the rights of the previous Act that was brought into force in 2017, to extend the same rights that the other health workers and care and support workers have under that bill to mental health workers, and to those that work in addiction support services as well.

Now, the previous speakers have talked about the Terranova case, and I just want to reinforce some of the learnings from that Terranova case, a very important case that is over $2 billion that was settled. It covered about 33,000 workers which were women. What did we learn from that case? We learnt that women deserve equal pay for work of equal value, and, essentially, that is what this bill is about, extending those same rights and activities to those that work in mental health and addiction support services. So it is a pleasure to rise in support of this bill.

Just going through some of the specifics of the bill, this bill covers mental health and addiction support workers, and gives them the same pay and training coverage that the previous bill in 2017 also gave. It gives the same level of enforcement mechanisms if there are disputes in the sector and also gives employers compensation for any type of extra costs that will be incurred by the pay differentials in this bill. It applies to, most importantly, union and non-union workers, so regardless of whether you’re a union worker or not, this law applies to you. It also gives specific funding for those that apply to the Ministry of Health, the district health board, and ACC.

So we are here at the first reading and we are supporting this bill because National believes in valuing equal work of equal pay. Certainly, it’s a core value in our party that you’re paid what you’re worth, and we’re absolutely happy to support this bill. This bill covers important people in the mental health sector and those that work with many of our most vulnerable.

Can I just talk a little bit about those most vulnerable in the area that I represent of Northcote, and a special shout-out to the many different mental health workers that are working in a whole range of services—Hearts & Minds being one of them that I can think of—that do a tremendous amount for our community, that work very hard. All they want is to be paid the same level of pay because it’s the same level of value as other professions. So it is a pleasure to support this bill in its first reading.

I just want to say one final acknowledgment. It’s a very important occasion, and I’m looking forward to hearing my colleague Paolo Garcia’s inspiring speech. Thank you very much, Madam Assistant Speaker.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare, talofa lava, and mabuhay to our Filipino community in attendance, and namaste to our Nepalese community here for Everest Day at Parliament.

Now, it’s been 125 years since women got the vote, but it’s sad that we have to acknowledge that to this day, women are still waiting to get fair pay and get paid what they’re worth. My colleague Liz Craig already very thoroughly explained the case that we refer to as the Terranova case that Kristine Bartlett and her union, E tū, had to fight for and run through three court cases. It is also really important in this case to see that the role of the unions is so crucial in taking these cases on, because without the unions, Kristine Bartlett would have had very little opportunity by herself.

Now, there has been a bit of discussion from the other side about people that were not here at the time of the pay equity settlement in 2017. Well, I wasn’t a member of Parliament, but I was working in the union and I did see all of the women who came together at meetings expressing their disgust at the National Party and the then National Government trying to stop the law from going through. Basically, what happened at the time—and I’d just like to set the record straight because previous speakers Michael Woodhouse and also Nicky Wagner completely misinterpreted or misunderstood the way things have happened under their watch. Basically, what happened at the time is after this settlement was made, the unions had to take a separate claim—that was quite correct—but that was because the National Government refused to include the mental health and addiction support workers in that particular care and support agreement. They had the Ministry of Health come along and say, “Look, on behalf of the National Government, you are not to include these mental health and addiction support workers.”—these very supportive, supporting, and deserving workers, as Ms Wagner pointed out—“You’re not to include them in here.”

So that’s why we’re here. We are righting a wrong today, a wrong that was done to these workers by the National Government. I’d like to point out that that group was specifically written out of that settlement, and that is actually showing so clearly why this coalition Government is different from the previous National Government, because we believe that improving mental health and addiction outcomes for our people is a top priority, and deliberately excluding people who support and help our most vulnerable really shows you that a National Government, at the time, didn’t care. First of all, they had to be dragged through the courts to get to this settlement, and then, secondly, they wrote out such a deserving group of people that we now have to put back into the law.

Now, I started my speech also by saying that women are still waiting to get fair pay, to get paid what they’re worth, and that is really what we’re doing now. This is fair pay. This is really what the Government is bringing in, and I would like to congratulate everyone involved in this process, because this is really paving the way forward, as the Minister has said. This is a fair pay agreement. It’s nothing else than that. It’s a fair pay agreement for 55,000 workers in the care and support worker industry, now joined by the 5,000 mental health and addiction support workers. It just clearly shows that this Government is tackling the long-term problems that are facing the country. We do know that not everything can be fixed overnight, but we are righting the wrongs done over the last nine years. We are making a start. There’s a lot more to do, but we’re getting on with the job and we’re doing exactly that. Thank you.

Talofa lava, Mr Speaker. Namaste to those who are visiting Parliament today for our Everest Day celebrations, and, in particular, magandang gabi to the very large number of visitors who are here.

May I say how honoured I am to have such a large audience to hear my thoughts on the Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlements Amendment Bill. I hope that I will be able to do justice to your confidence in visiting the country for that. Of course, we only have a few minutes until a much more significant event, and I have already, in a previous speech this afternoon, acknowledged my very fine new colleague Paolo Garcia, but I do welcome those who have made the trip down here. This is a very historic day, not only because of this bill—and I’ll return to that in a moment—but in particular because it is well past time that New Zealand had a Filipino member of Parliament, and I am delighted that that has come to pass. I want to thank all Filipinos throughout the country for the outstanding contribution you make to our communities.

In particular, it is relevant that we are talking about this bill, because many Filipinos in my own city of Hamilton are represented in the care and support workers industries that are recognised by this particular bill, so I thank them all very much for that, but, of course, I thank all who are represented in those communities and in those workforces, because the work that they do is deeply valued and, I acknowledge, is often pretty unattractive. It hasn’t had, at all times, the support it should have done. I was disappointed in the churlish contribution of the previous speaker, Marja Lubeck, who failed to acknowledge that it was the National Government who brought in the primary legislation following the Terranova settlement. It is therefore, I think, appropriate to acknowledge that this bill builds on that important settlement, and it would also have been nice if that previous speaker had acknowledged that the National Party is supporting this measure as we move to close the loophole that has been identified by previous speakers.

Now, I think the other thing that would be well worth doing is just to acknowledge that it was an historic settlement. It was valued at $2 billion. That was no mean feat to give it legislative effect and to ensure that the Budget was able to accommodate the significant change that that required. It recognised the work carried out by 55,000 workers in our aged and disability residential care and home community support services across the country. I am sorry that the members opposite can’t acknowledge that fact, that that happened under the National Party, because those sorts of things can’t just happen overnight. They are hugely important—

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Nine years.

—considerations for any Minister of Finance to take into account. To the member who’s just called out “nine years”, I’d point out that, actually, you could say it goes back much further than that as well. She needs to remember the economic circumstances that the National Party faced when we came into office. It would not have been possible to have moved much faster than we did, but when we had the ability to do so, we did, and I’m very delighted to say that we achieved that.

I am conscious of the fact that there are many in the gallery—in fact, far more than, I think, came to attend my own maiden speech. I can reflect, possibly, on the reasons for that, but those who were here on the occasion will recall that my maiden speech took a rather long time. So, Paolo, I hope that—because I believe the Speaker will interrupt me in a few moments from now—you manage to keep your time-keeping under better account. In fact, I do acknowledge it was the Speaker who came to my rescue on that particular occasion, and if I’ve never said thank you to him before, I wish to say thank you to him now.

Let me finish as I commenced, by saying this is an historic day for several reasons. It is the day that we mark Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay’s historic feat at Mount Everest. It is the day that we mark the introduction of this significant piece of legislation. It is the day that New Zealand celebrates the first—but, I’m sure, not the last—Filipino MP to come to our Parliament. What a fine man he is. I know that he is well supported by Ambassador Jesus (Gary) Domingo, who I believe is probably with us. I also believe that his excellent predecessor, Virginia Benavidez, is also with us. Welcome to them both. Thank you so much—lovely to see you. I shall not detain the House any further. I’m delighted to be part of this historic occasion, and I wish my new colleague and all his supporters all the very best.

Talofa lava e Te Māngai o Te Whare. I’ll be quick because I don’t want to hold up proceedings, and I extend congratulations to our newest member of the House. Firstly, when I was preparing for this kōrero, my question was: why were mental health and addiction workers excluded from the care and support workers settlement in the first place? Actually, the reason we’re debating this legislation is because at the time, we were really clear that those in the aged-care, disability, and home-care sectors—55,000 workers—deserved pay equity. We valued them, and so I acknowledge the National Government at the time, who, after a court case, valued those workers.

What they didn’t do, though, was value mental health and addiction support workers. So why did that happen?

💬 Simon O’Connor: It was the union.

They’re blaming the unions. Well, I’ve got a quote here from John Ryall, who was very clear that the veto came from the then National Government, the Minister of Health, Jonathan Coleman—he did that, with his Cabinet colleagues. So we’re here today to make sure that this country realises that mental health and addiction workers are incredibly valuable and they’re valued. We’re fixing up a mistake, a deliberate exclusion of 5,000 workers by the National Government.

So what does that mean for the ordinary worker? It means $120 extra for 50 percent of those workers; $200 a week extra for 20 percent. This is a significant advancement, so, well done, but why you excluded them in the first place, the Lord knows. Kia ora.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Health Committee.

on behalf of the Minister of Health: I move, That the Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlements Amendment Bill be reported to the House by 15 October 2019.

Motion agreed to.