Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlements Amendment Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlements Amendment Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

I move, That the Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlements Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

This bill, as the motion for urgency indicates, does quite a simple thing, and that is it extends the life of the current legislation enacted in 2017—however, with the pay rates amended and in recognition of the fact that the part of the current legislation that prohibits pursuit of a pay equity claim is now ended and a pay equity claim can be advanced.

I should say that, in the lead up to this, there’s been a fair amount of exchange between the unions representing many of these workers, Government departments, and, indeed, myself to work out what is the best pathway through. We know that the one thing this group of workers has been campaigning for, and agitating for, for many, many years now—10 years at least—and indeed was behind the litigation that led to the 2017 legislation, is getting pay equity. In substitution for that, the previous Government enacted this legislation—admittedly with the agreement of the unions—that provided enhanced pay rates at the time but prohibited them from seeking a pay equity claim. The previous pay equity claim that they were advancing had been mounted under the Equal Pay Act, as it was at the time.

The current legislation expunges the claim that was lodged in that respect and all litigation, and so any pay equity claim for this group of workers has to start from scratch. But this group of workers did get the benefit of legislation in this Parliament that set rates of pay for a five-year period, and every worker that falls under the rubric of the legislation benefits from that.

We have amended the pay rates. Two things have happened in relation to this. First of all, this group of workers already benefited from a pay rise that took effect in November last year. It was a pay rise triggered by the labour cost index adjustment mechanism in the legislation. That adjustment was roughly 1.6 percent, and that was backdated to last July to the date of the most recent increase. In addition to that, this Government is funding a further 3 percent to take effect from 1 July this year, subject to the passage of this legislation, so that since the increase on 1 July last year, this group of workers will have benefited from a 4.6 percent pay increase. Added to that, they’ve had a small adjustment in their in-between travel allowance. It’s not quite at the IRD rate, but it is closer to it. An increase in that was funded on a temporary basis recently—as petrol prices went up—and Health NZ has agreed to continue funding that adjustment from 1 July.

So we’ve done everything we can to alleviate the current cost pressures on this group of workers. In my engagement with the unions and, indeed, with the providers, what they most want to do is get on with the pay equity claim for these workers, and the Government will provide resource support for both sides—for both the providers, that is to say the employers, and also the unions—so that each is supported by appropriate technical advice and expertise and can get on and deal with the pay equity claim for this group of workers. For this group of workers, the duties they do and the skill set that they have is reasonably well defined. So I’m not anticipating a huge difficulty in the parties finding appropriate comparators, going through the technical processes that they have to, and arriving at a suitable conclusion.

So we are supporting this group of workers to do the one thing that they and their predecessors have campaigned for for a long, long time—and that is that genuine pay equity that has been denied to them for a long time—and now they will get it. They’ll get a pay adjustment effective at 1 July this year to add to what they got in November last year. That’ll make a big difference. And on that basis, I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to speak to this bill. I’ll start by making an observation that this is the second time in a week that we’re doing a health bill under urgency, with truncated processes. I’ll speak more to that.

I want to briefly talk to the history that brings us here today, re-examining the Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlements Amendment Bill. In 2017, I think Jonathan Coleman was the Minister leading this, then under a National Government. We enabled the Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlements Bill, also known as the TerraNova or Kristine Bartlett bill sometimes. A number of us sat on that select committee and grappled with complex issues such as cost pass-through and pay relativity. But we got to the end and enabled a bill. It was interesting, actually—during that process, the comparator for care and support workers was actually Corrections staff at that point in time. We go through, and the result was a scaled, tiered framework for an increase in wage rates that for the 65,000 caregivers was actually quite significant. Those 65,000 caregivers were mostly healthcare assistants and support workers across four funded sectors: the aged residential care sector, home and community, disability, and mental health and addiction.

Now, the bill had a sunset clause five years after commencement, 30 June 2022, in eight days’ time, which is what brings us here. What was required over these five years was a framework for wage bargaining to incorporate the pay equity principles so that ordinary, normal wage bargaining could occur when this bill disabled on 30 June, in eight days’ time. Clearly, that hasn’t happened, and that’s what brings us here today.

The background of what’s actually happened over those five years is substantively nothing. Nothing happened—five years to progress this. There was no epiphany that on 30 June, the pay equity bill was going to expire. What actually happened here was in August 2021, the New Zealand Aged Care Association (NZACA) reminded officials of the expiry date. It was raised through the regular ARC, or the Aged Residential Care steering group, which has district health boards and Ministry of Health officials on it. Nothing was done. So that was August last year—the first flag in the sand that I want to put.

On 21 December, a letter was sent to the interim chair of Health New Zealand, bringing again to his attention that this Act was going to expire on 30 June. Nothing was done. On 28 January, a letter was sent to the Minister, who did convene a meeting quite quickly, I understand. He brought in his officials. I understand he was unhappy with them as well and gave them the hurry-along, was how it was explained to me. In April, however, it appeared there was some suggestions from officials that maybe the best way to manage this was just to let the Act expire, and that would have been a disaster. To go back to the pre-2017 conditions—that was unacceptable to the unions.

E tū, PSA, and a number of other key stakeholders were present, and they expressed their vehement opposition to that plan. So in May, the ministry and the Government flip-flopped and said, “Look, what we’ll do is we’ll put $300 million over four years. That is $75 million per annum, is what the agreement will be.” There was no bargaining with this. It was a mandate, as has been the mandate for the rest of the sector—“This is what you will get.” Fundamentally, it relates to 70c per hour for those on the lowest wages, and about 3 percent per annum is what that $300 million over four years equates to. What then happened was that the unions and other stakeholders, other organisations, said “No, that’s not going to cut it.”, and they walked away from negotiations. That’s actually what’s happened; that’s what brings us here today. Amongst other things, it’s been pointed out to me that the lowest rate under this bill, at $22.49, is less than the living wage of $23.65.

Here are the consequences of this late and lazy bill that after five years is coming to us under urgency. Several things: first of all, 65,000 care and support workers will not have standard wage bargaining. Instead, they get told in primary legislation what their wages will be. This is a dangerous practice. Secondly, care and support workers are locked in for 18 months. This goes through to the end of next year. Thirdly, there is no opportunity for the voices of care and support workers to be heard through the standard legislative process—more particularly, through select committee—because today we’re going to pass all of this through urgency, and they wanted their voices to be heard.

We learnt an awful lot when we did the TerraNova bill. We learnt an awful lot from submitters, things we hadn’t thought about, and that’s the nature of the select committee process. None of us have got a franchise on all the good ideas in the world, and we learnt a lot from those submitters, and the bill was shaped appropriately—Jan Logie had a key role in that, as I recall. And yet we’re never going to get that opportunity, because today we’re going to do it all at once, and they are angry. E tū is angry. PSA is angry. NZACA is angry. They are all angry that their voices will not be heard.

Five years to get this ready, but no. All the attention has been on health reforms. All the money has been on health reforms. Five years—eight days out from when this bill expires, here we are doing this under urgency. Aged and residential care workers, HCAs, and support workers rightly feel that they’re being thrown under the bus, and there are many precedents here when the Government will legislate instead of incorporate fair bargaining practices. That’s a very worrying precedent.

So we want to send a signal here. Our position here will be: we will be supporting this bill, because we want to support and continue to send that signal that we understand and support the principles of pay equity in women-dominated careers. That’s how we came to be doing the pay equity legislation in 2017 in the first place. We need people to be paid, but we’re putting flags in the sand for the many issues we have got, not the least of which that under urgency, after five years—five years when this could have been done—we’re here today and we’re going to rush this through without the voices of those concerned being substantively taken into account.

So I’ve established our position, established the history, and established the three main concerns we’ve got. Again, I will conclude by saying we will be supporting this bill because we support the 65,000 care and support workers that it applies to. Like them, we are very unhappy with the process that forces us into this position. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Mānawatia a Matariki. [We welcome and celebrate Matariki.] I rise as the MP for Takanini in support of the Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlements Amendment Bill at its first reading.

It’s a great opportunity to take a brief call on this bill, and what does this bill intend to do? Well, it amends the Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlements Act 2017 and also gives effect to an increase in the minimum wage rates from 1 July 2022 for support workers covered by the principal Act.

This is about delivering on an agreement back in 2017 on behalf of the Crown, ACC, 20 DHBs, and various union organisations. It is about showing the value of our support workers and the work they do. My experience with many of our community support workers back home is that they do tremendous work, and I honour and value their work with our whānau.

So just a brief call to say that I support this bill. I commend it. Thank you.

If there is anything that I’ve seen that is emblematic of a “promise big, do nothing” Government, it’s this piece of legislation. Never, actually, have I been as disappointed as I am today at the fact that we were passing this legislation under urgency, completely unnecessarily, to protect what was significant gains for 55,000 care and support workers in 2017 that have been nearly entirely snuffed out for reasons that I will explain.

For all the crowing, actually, that Labour and the unions did in 2017 when the TerraNova settlement was finally reached, it was a National Government that got there. Indeed, the court case that precipitated this settlement—an eye-watering settlement at the time—the Government wasn’t even involved in. It was Kristine Bartlett and TerraNova—a private aged-care provider. The Government of the day could have sat on the sidelines with its popcorn out, watching with interest what was going to happen to what at the start of that process was a pretty novel claim under the Equal Pay Act 1972, but the Cabinet that I was in decided to act. It decided to do the right thing and it came up with a more than $2 billion settlement of a court case. Credit does have to be given to the unions and to Kristine Bartlett, but I was incredibly proud to be part of a Government—in fact, one of the Ministers—that was closely involved in the settlement. Obviously, as a health issue, it was led by the Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman, with a weather eye on it from the Minister of Finance at the time, the Hon Steven Joyce, but I was the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety, and this had a significant effect on employment relations in this country and in employment law going forward.

So I was very, very keen to make sure that this was done in a manner that gave effect to the spirit of the pay equity settlement that we were looking for, and, indeed, shortly after that, I introduced the pay equity bill that for reasons that still elude me—although I have a suspicion that it simply was because it was a National Government that was doing it—Labour and the Greens went to war with that piece of legislation and threw it out in 2017.

💬 Hon Andrew Little: It wasn’t pay equity.

Well, the Minister can talk big, but we’re here, five years later, fixing up his mess. In fact, we’re not even fixing it up; we’re kicking the can down the road for another 18 months, because that settlement led to a 21 percent average increase in income for the 55,000-odd care and support workers that were eligible for it. A National Government did that.

The National Government did the in-between travel payment legislation that the Minister has referenced and thrown crumbs at, and it was designed to buy time for the normal bargaining processes between care and support workers, their unions, and their employers to be resumed. Five years was given; four years and eight months of that time under this Government. As Dr Reti has pointed out, and as this skinny departmental disclosure statement discloses, they didn’t get on to this until a couple of months ago. They were completely asleep at the wheel, and detailed discussions with the unions weren’t held until 3 May this year—between 3 May and 26 May. It, quite glibly, says, “The unions and employers do not agree with the quantum of the increase to the minimum wage rates to apply from 1 July 2022.” Well, no wonder—they had five minutes to consider it. They had nearly no time to consider it.

The Minister admits in his first reading speech that once we have done this, these workers are going to have to start again with a new pay equity claim because the benefits of the TerraNova settlement have completely unravelled.

💬 Hon Andrew Little: The member is wrong—could not be more wrong. Totally wrong.

And I’ll explain why. When “Angry Andrew” calms down a bit, I’ll let him know why I say that. The Prime Minister in question time today was crowing about the fact that this Government in five years has increased wage rates for health workers by 25 percent. What that means is, despite the 21 percent increase that care and support workers got in 2017, they’re, effectively, going backwards in real terms relative to other workers in the sector, and what does this give them? In an inflationary environment that is approaching and that will soon exceed 7 percent, these guys are being offered—not even offered; told they are going to get, effectively, an annualised increase of 3 percent. It’s 4.6 percent until the end of 2023—

💬 Andrew Bayly: That’s half.

Less than half inflation, Mr Bayly—what a cracking good mathematician he is. So they’re going to go back even further, and it’s no wonder the Minister is saying, “Well, we’re going to have to start pay equity negotiations again because all of the benefits of that very large settlement have now unravelled.”

It’s even more insulting: I have been given information that went to aged-care providers as recently as 9 June that said that the offer made by Health New Zealand to the aged residential care sector for the annual price increase, obviously, that’s going to be not just staffing, was 1.2 percent—1.2 percent. So this Government crows about all the money they throw at the health sector this year, but the aged residential care sector is being offered 1.2 percent.

My colleagues Penny Simmonds, Joseph Mooney, and I had a Zoom call with aged-care providers in the southern region three or four weeks ago, and I must say—I mean, I’ve spent quite a bit of time in the health sector, and I’ve seen a lot of clinical staff get very emotional, under pressure, in tears. I have never seen managers and owners of facilities in that state, but they certainly were in that meeting. They don’t know how they’re going to survive. They are losing staff, they’re losing registered nurses—they can’t kidnap registered nurses right now. Healthcare assistants are holding the place together, and they’re being insulted with this offer and told that they can’t negotiate. Well, that is Muldoonism, that is socialism, that is “Shut up and be quiet.”, and that is not what good employment law and employment relations is about.

These so-called bastions of the working class are throwing crumbs at this vital workforce and telling them to be quiet for another 18 months. That is a disgrace, and it absolutely sticks in the craw for my party to support this bill, although we will, and we’ll do it despite that disappointment, anger, and frustration, and despite another terrible process.

Dr Reti was on the select committee that spent 10 days working through the issues that were raised in the Budget night legislation that had its first reading, and there were a number of things around the funding provisions, leave liability, a mediation mechanism, whether the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet was going to pass. There were some sensible changes to that legislation, and we got a meaningful settlement. We’re not getting a meaningful anything out of this. This is just a terrible—terrible—process. It’s a disgraceful process, and as Dr Reti said, it’s by no means the first time that we’ve had health bills rushed through—firstly introduced under urgency, and then by agreement with the Business Committee through remaining stages—and I absolutely am convinced that it won’t be the last.

In my second reading contribution, I’m going to go through why it’s so important to have that process and why I predict that we will be back here before too long, either fixing this because of an unforeseen consequence or having to do it again. But here’s my prediction: by then, we’ll have a National-led Government and a Government that actually cares for these workers and doesn’t just talk big and do nothing. We will deliver for these workers again.

What a rewrite of history about what actually happened with the Kristine Bartlett case and the National Party’s dismal attempt at putting in place a proper pay equity system. So I’m just going to start with that, because one of the critical parts of a pay equity system is having the ability to assess the correct comparators. One of the things that the National Party’s proposal did was it would have forced workers to compare with each other, not actually go through a robust comparator assessment to ensure that the correct male-dominated industries were being compared with. So that was a piece of law that we then changed when we became Government, and this Government has actually settled actual pay equity claims under the legislation that we have put in place.

Now, another thing was that the settlement—and I want to put on record my acknowledgment of the three unions, because he missed out one—the PSA, E tū, and the New Zealand Nurses Organisation—who fought for this legislation, those amazing hard workers who were forced to go all the way to the Supreme Court because the Government refused to engage with them. That was the point when they determined to do so—

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: The Government wasn’t a party to it.

Oh, Mr Woodhouse. I know the history around this. The important piece of this bill that is so critical is the piece that will allow these workers to finally take a pay equity claim. There was a small clause inside that settlement Act that said they cannot take a pay equity claim until the Act expires. Now, the bill we are introducing today does not amend that. So from that original expiry date, these critical workers, these workers who work so hard supporting our most vulnerable people, will be able to properly take a pay equity claim under our decent legislation so that they will actually have a proper robust ability—[Michael Woodhouse shakes his head] Yes, Mr Woodhouse, they will have a proper robust ability to get the pay equity that they deserve.

So we on this side of the House in the Labour Government are putting in place an ability for these workers to finally have the assessment that they need and I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Mānawatia a Matariki to all the workers out there. You were essential workers before the pandemic, you were definitely essential workers during the pandemic, and, to the Greens, you will continue to be essential workers.

I want to start today by acknowledging Jan Logie, who could not be here today, because she’s unwell, but she has been at the picket lines with these workers. She has consistently stood by the side of care workers and support workers and nurses and teacher aides and every other underpaid sector pushing for better pay and conditions. Support and care workers deserve better. They work long hours, often without breaks. They do some of the hardest work there is, dealing with complex needs, complex behavioural issues, hazardous waste, always on their feet caring for some of our most vulnerable New Zealanders, and I want to acknowledge those workers. Kia kaha, kia toa, kia manawanui. We need to start valuing care work and the workers that prop up our whole healthcare system. It’s not OK to keep their wages low and keep our support workers from achieving fair pay because it’s work predominantly done by women.

Wāhine Māori and Pasifika women are far more likely to engage in undervalued care and support work, and therefore will be disproportionately impacted by continued low wages in the sector. For every dollar a Pākehā man makes—listen in, Pākehā men—wāhine Māori earn 81c and Pasifika women earn 73c. And here we are, at the eleventh hour, and the Government is offering with this amendment bill an extension of the settlement deal with a 3 percent pay rise, or an extra 70c per hour for support workers—70c. Times are tough, the cost of living is sky high, and they’re only getting 70c extra in an hour. That’s not even enough for an extra litre of petrol, not enough for a $1 bag of lollies at the dairy, or it’s one-twentieth of a block of cheese. At their protest, they were giving away Chupa Chups, which are about 70c, just to highlight the point. That is the reason why we will not be supporting this bill in the House today, and we will not be supporting urgency as well. We are practical, and we are generally supportive of things that take a step in the right direction, even if it’s a small step, but we cannot in good conscience vote for a pay increase of less than a dollar an hour and call it progress. We cannot in good conscience support this going through all stages under urgency when the Government had years—years—to sort this out properly and instead is rushing it through with an inadequate patch up.

I also wanted to recognise the history of the bill, and I know members on both sides of the House have done that. The Care and Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlement Act 2017 got to the Parliament because of the determination of one woman, Kristine Bartlett, and her supportive unions. She was a residential aged care worker. She lodged an application with the Employment Relations Authority, against the then National-led Government, that she was not receiving equal pay under the Equal Pay Act of 1972. She argued on behalf of care and support workers on poverty wages, between 2009 and 2012, saying that their work was undervalued because it was done by women. She won her case and, when it was appealed, she won again in the Court of Appeal. They found that support workers had been historically underpaid because they were women. Rather than have the courts dictate the wages of care and support workers, which they had done, had the Government not come to the table, the ex - finance Minister Bill English began negotiating support workers’ wages with Bartlett’s union, the Service and Food Workers Union, now part of E tū.

After two years of negotiations, punctuated with threats of protest by the unions to go back to court to have the matter adjudicated, a deal was struck with the National Government to pass the Care and Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlement Act of 2017 to give effect to the agreement. It delivered $2 billion in wage rises to care workers, brought in over five years. After that point, the pay equity deal and the legislation will be set to expire and self-repeal on 1 July 2022—just around the corner.

The Green Party has always been clear that the initial settlement was not a full equity settlement, and we do welcome the ability for the sector to begin negotiations to resolve their pay claims fairly through the process now being used by other sectors. I’d also like to acknowledge the work of the Hon Julie Anne Genter when she was Minister for Women, when she introduced and championed the Gender Pay Gap Action Plan, because one of the ways the Government is aiming to achieve this plan in 2021 and 2022 is through equal pay regardless of gender or ethnicity. This is not equal pay. It’s not fair. It’s not fair pay.

This Government must do better, because here we are, nine days out from 1 July 2022, when the 2017 settlement will expire, and despite the union’s efforts to initiate discussions with the Government last year over a replacement or an extension of the 2017 Act, nothing was achieved, either because the Government forgot or didn’t consider fair pay for support workers to be a priority. This offer is a 3 percent pay rise, or an extra 70c per hour for support workers. In these times, 70c is a slap in the face for someone who has been a support worker for 12 years. That’s a huge devaluation of the skill and expertise needed to do this work. That’s less than half the rate of inflation and nowhere near the union’s calculation for what is required to maintain the pay equity in the previous settlement. The starting rate the Government is offering for support wages is $22.49. That’s not even the living wage. In Australia, they’re offering their care workers an average of $35.86 in New Zealand dollars. That’s miles ahead of us.

The Government has known that this legislation would lapse and has failed to put in place a transitional process to protect the pay of these essential workers while negotiating their pay equity claims. It is beyond disappointing that a Labour Government with an outright majority isn’t willing to go further for support workers and for all underpaid sectors. The Green Party has always been clear that care work needs to be valued properly. It does. We have always been clear that the work done by women, particularly by Māori and Pasifika wāhine, in caring for our communities is the bedrock of our society. It is the bedrock of our community. We also acknowledge that there is a massive staffing crisis in care work because of the terrible pay and conditions. That could have been addressed if the Government had done their homework and got pay equity sorted in time.

So this is an issue for everyone with care needs and everybody with family with care needs, as well as the workers and their direct families. Every single Green Party MP understands that pay equity is more than just about money; it’s about the values that we have in society. It is about the values that we have as communities living here in Aotearoa, acknowledging care work for the essential work that it is and showing that we value the important things.

My message to the workers who are feeling betrayed by the Government because of this deal, the Government offering crumbs, is that we hear you loud and clear and we will continue to advocate for you. We’re not going to let Labour off the hook and say it’s better than nothing and good things take time. Kāo. Pay equity is long overdue—it is long overdue—and it’s simply not good enough to let past agreements erode it in real time while our essential workers face unprecedented increases in the cost of living. Nō reira e te Pīka, the Greens will not be supporting this bill.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT in support of this Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlements Amendment Bill. The ACT Party is supporting this bill for a very simple reason: that some of the hardest working, most essential people in this country are the care and support workers who benefit from the pay rates set out in this legislation and the admittedly small but none the less pay increases that they will have delivered.

Now, we think that, you know, there’s a lot of underlying problems that I’m going to address, but at the same time, I think it would be wrong and churlish not to at least support that. There is a history to this legislation, which, unfortunately, I have to say, has been subjected to some historical amnesia by speakers so far on both sides of the House. Seeing as we’ve got a decent half hour of speaking time tonight—and that’s not counting committee stage—it’s worth just working through some of it. The Kristine Bartlett and Seafood Workers Union—

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: Seafood?

—case—it’s not the right one; I know. The Service and Food Workers Union—it’s getting close to dinner time, but it was certainly the Service and Food Workers Union. It has led the court to make a rather novel finding, that the Pay Equity Act 1972—

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: Equal Pay Act.

—was not about—the Equal Pay Act was not about—see, it is getting close to dinner. The Equal Pay Act was not simply about making sure that one job with a man and a woman working in it would not discriminate in terms of pay. They found that, actually, entire groups of workers could be discriminated against, and even men doing that type of work could be paid less, because the whole type of worker was discriminated against based on gender. This was quite a challenge to the Government at the time.

I said that there’s some historical amnesia. One of the National members said, “Well, the Government could have sat back with the popcorn and just watched.” Well, that’s not my recollection of being on the Cabinet Social Policy Committee at the time. There was enormous concern, because the precedent that had been set in the Bartlett case meant that there might be challenges in all sorts of areas of work, many of which would have fiscal implications, because in many cases the Government was, if not the direct employer of people who might take a case, at least the funder of those areas, such as care homes.

So the Government, fundamentally, had to make a choice. It had three basic options. One was to stay out of it, see what the courts found, and suffer the slings and arrows as case after case was taken and the courts found that groups of people were entitled to be paid more, much of which would have fiscal implications for the Crown.

The second option was to actually stick to the professed principles of at least some members of that Government, and certainly this one, and say, “Actually, you know what? We don’t want judges to set wages for entire sectors of the economy based on the assumption that there’s rampant sexism and people are being paid based on their gender rather than the actual work they are doing. We’re going to legislate over the top of this finding and say that the Equal Pay Act is for individuals. It doesn’t allow the kind of finding that the courts have just made.”, and move on in a market economy where wages are set between willing employers and willing employees.

That would have been the principled approach to take, but it’s not the approach that the Government at that time did take. What the Government did is as part of the 2017 Budget—and what we didn’t know at the time, but turned out to be its dying months—pass a piece of legislation which basically said there was no right to bring any more such cases for care and support workers, and, as a sweetener to that, care and support workers would be paid at a certain minimum rate set out in the schedules of the Act. In other words, instead of the judges setting pay rates for groups of people, Parliament decided to start setting pay rates for groups of people, which, if you believe in open markets and willing employers and willing employees, is anathema—but nevertheless, that’s what the then National-led Government did.

It also said that this will expire in exactly five years, which, as it turns out, that time is up on 30 June, which must be about next Saturday. Now, to give credit to that Government, they did do one thing right, which is that they referred the legislation to a 10-day select committee. At any other time, a 10-day select committee would be seen as rushed legislation, insincere, not giving people the time to properly prepare submissions. But the thing about a 10-day select committee is that it’s infinitely better than what’s being done tonight, having a zero-day select committee. That means that this legislation will be passed without any input whatsoever from interested members of the public, unless the Government has chosen to approach them.

There are two problems with that. One is lack of knowledge—there may be people with insights into this legislation who would have come forward but haven’t been asked. The second is with open Government and democracy. So there may be people who have a view who will not be able to express it, because the Government of the day didn’t ask them. That’s why we have a Parliament. That’s why we have select committees. That’s why we seek public submissions, because we’re actually an open society that allows all people to give a view.

So that is the history that got us here, and I don’t think the National Government of the time is quite as blameless, let alone heroic as it has been described. It was put in a difficult position by the courts and it basically reacted by kicking the can down the road five years.

But none of that is to excuse where we’ve got to over five years, which is that this Government has had five years to settle these pay equity claims and couldn’t do it. So now, with about eight days remaining, with no public consultation, under urgency, they’re going to rush through an 18-month extension to give themselves some extra time, hoping that they’ll kick a few goals then, and that is—

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: They won’t do it.

Yeah, and Gerry Brownlee says, “They won’t do it.” One of the things I’ve learnt is that Gerry Brownlee has deep insights, and he’s probably right on this one.

The question is: what should have been done—or what should be done? Well, one of the things that needs to be done is we need to confront a reality that is underlying this whole problem, and it is the simple fact that New Zealand claims First World status, and yet we, increasingly, do not have it. In the time this Labour Government’s been in power, the gap between New Zealand’s median wage and Australia’s has grown $6,600 a year. Now, that’s not the gap is $6,600; the gap has got $6,600 greater, just in five years. We’re going to keep rubbing up against issues like this under urgency, trying to solve problems that no one’s really had the courage to solve, because we want to be First World. We want to have care and support workers. We want to feel that everyone that needs care and support is going to be looked after at the highest possible First World standard, but increasingly, we can’t afford it. The problem is that we haven’t even had the ability to negotiate, even with the Government we currently have.

Now, an interesting fact: I don’t put a lot of store in what people did before they were in Parliament—I’m interested in what they do when they’re here—but 30 percent of the current Labour caucus were union organisers. This is the most extraordinary thing. In the general New Zealand population, 0.026 percent of New Zealanders are union organisers. That means a Labour MP is 10,000 times more likely to be a union organiser than the average New Zealander. You might have thought—

💬 Hon Willie Jackson: I was a union organiser.

—that such a group of people—and I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, but Willie Jackson’s just said he was a union organiser.

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: He also said he didn’t know what he was doing.

Well, he also said he didn’t know what he was doing. But you think about it: if there was ever a Government that you thought might have a chance of actually settling these pay equity agreements, you would hope that it might be one that was 30 percent union organisers, but as it turned out, they were not able to do that. That has got us into the current muddle. The previous Government didn’t have the courage of its convictions to put in place the proper policy. The current Government hasn’t had the alacrity or the urgency or the wealth or the wherewithal to actually settle the pay equity agreements, and, as a result, we are like a tinpot little country here, under urgency, passing laws because we’ve run out of options through the lack of alacrity shown through this Government. And yet, all the party is able to do is support it, because the alternative would be even worse. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Tēnā koe e te Whare. It’s a pleasure today to take a call on the first reading of the Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlements Amendment Bill in the name of Minister the Hon Andrew Little. This bill amends the repeal date for various provisions of the 2017 Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlements Act, or the principal Act, and inserts new minimum wage rates for support workers from 1 July 2022.

The proposals in this paper deliver on the Government’s priority of accelerating progress in reducing pay gaps faced by women—and especially women who identify as Māori and Pasifika—through achievement of increasing pay rates. Recently, in Hamilton, I caught up with support workers in my electorate, along with E tū union representatives, and I heard from them the difference the principal Act has made in their lives in being able to afford their own flats and being able to afford fuel, food costs—all those important necessities of life.

I just want to acknowledge the work by Kristine Bartlett and the E tū union, as well as others, in this, as someone who actually used to work as a caregiver before I got into medicine. So thank you for all the work, and I recommend this bill to the House.

I call Simon Watts—five minutes.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. It is a pleasure to rise on behalf of National as the member of Parliament for North Shore on the Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlements Amendment Bill at its first reading.

It’s been interesting to listen to some of the background history in terms of where we’ve come from to be where we are today. The reality is that circumstances are what they are, and at the time in which the decisions were made, these decisions were made. In 2017, National supported a pay equity arrangement and committed to that multibillion-dollar care package supporting some of our most vulnerable workers in terms of care and support workers across our sectors. That equity settlement came into play at that point.

We have traversed the conversations around where we are, but the reality, I think, is that we are here under urgency—or we’re about to be under urgency—in terms of putting through a bill which the Government has had five long years to avoid or mitigate, or prepare for where we are today. And with just on seven days between now and when this bill will come into effect, we are now out of options. We are out of potential mitigations in terms of what needs to be done, and we’re pushing through legislation to basically kick the ball a little bit further out for touch for 18 months. As a result of that, we are where we are.

National are supporting this bill and we’re supporting it for the fundamental reason that we believe that these workers within our system do a huge amount of value. They contribute a significant amount to a wide range of New Zealanders, particularly those, as I’ve noted, who are in vulnerable positions—many of our elderly and those within parts of our broader healthcare system. At a time when we’re dealing with a workforce crisis with regards to those sectors, the least we can do is ensure that those workers are supported in terms of the pay element they get.

I think we’ve heard previous speakers acknowledge the scale of that pay, and, you know, we are where we are and the concerns we’re raising today are in regard to the process which has not been undertaken and why we are here today. The element that is so important and an element that will not be available is the fact that there is going to be no select committee process or no formal process in order for people to be able to contribute or provide feedback, and that’s a real great shame. I think that, irrespective of where we stand, the ability for voices to be heard, the ability for Kiwis to be able to contribute in terms of our democracy, is critically important. But in this instance that option is not going to be available. That is a great shame, and it is something that could have been avoided had adequate planning been undertaken in advance—as I said: five years—so it’s not as if we’re under the pump in terms of pressure.

But someone—or elements—has dropped the ball on this and this has all of a sudden come up, and the Minister is hurrying to try and come up with a fix. And it’s a quick fix, and that is disappointment. But I think that is symptomatic of a broader way in which this Government is operating, particularly in reform within the broader health system, and I must say we’re seeing it in the local government sector as well. It’s the same old, same old. It’s a reactive response in terms of reform, it’s making it up on the fly, and it is just causing a huge barrage of collateral damage out the back, because of the simple fact that this isn’t planned, it isn’t structured, and it hasn’t been done in a proactive manner.

I think the other contributing factor, no doubt, is that those front-line teams have been distracted by the scale of the health restructuring that’s been put on their plate in the midst of a global pandemic. That element as well is something that those staff on the front lines are dealing with continuously, and I do want to acknowledge the efforts they are making day in, day out to keep our communities safe and well. We support this bill.

Sarah Pallett—five minutes.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. As chair of the Labour Women Caucus, I welcome the introduction of this bill, which affects a predominantly female workforce. As we’ve heard, it acts to extend the repeal date for the Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlements Act 2017 so that the benefits made in the original settlements can be preserved, as well as providing an increased minimum wage from 1 July 2022, simply so that unions and employees can work to progress an enduring solution. Because the fact that seems to be escaping the House this afternoon is that under the original Act, in section 8, they are prevented from bringing a genuine pay equity claim until this Act expires. So the talk of five years we’ve had to progress this pay equity claim is completely erroneous; it is prevented under the original Act. And that is why I commend this bill to the House.

Ngā mihi o te wā Matariki ki a koe me tātou Whare. [Greetings of the time of Matariki to you, and to our House.]

It’s a pleasure to rise and speak to this bill, which is a very straightforward one. It amends the Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlements Act to extend the repeal date for the operative sections of the Act, that would otherwise be repealed on 1 July, and it increases the minimum wage rates that apply from 1 July.

So why is this very straightforward piece of legislation needed? It’s so that these women who work as support workers, predominantly Māori and Pacific women who are performing much-needed services in our communities, do not step backward while these pay negotiations are going on. That’s why this straightforward bill needs to be introduced to the House tonight, and I commend it.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise, unhappily, to speak on this Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlements Amendment Bill that amends the Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlements Act 2017. I find it, as a new MP, absolutely astonishing to be in the House doing something like this—a piece of legislation that would be expiring in about a week’s time and here we are at the eleventh hour having to make amendments. And while I might normally agree with my colleague Dr Anae Neru Leavasa on acknowledging these support workers and these care workers, I don’t see how on earth this is acknowledging them. This is disrespecting them, that five years have gone past when nothing has been done and now they are being offered 4.6 percent increase over 18 months, which isn’t anywhere near the inflation rate. So I find it just not giving appropriate respect and acknowledgment to these workers.

So how can this possibly have happened? Five years ago, the National Government, at a cost of around $2 billion, gave wage rises to these care and support workers, and they are care and support workers who look after the most vulnerable in our community: the aged care, the disabled, those that are frail in their own homes through illness or disability. These are the workers that look after those people in our community who are the most vulnerable. So they were given these increases, which ranged from 15 to 50 percent over five years, and over five years you would expect that those agreements would then have been settled. But no, we are back here seven days before this Act expires, at which time there would be no mechanism to maintain the gains that were made in those wage rates back in 2017. And so this workforce would go back to prior to 2017 terms and conditions. To be doing this under urgency, taking away the voice of the care and support workers and their unions, and for this to be done by a Labour Government which is steeped—as we have heard—in union organisers, is just unbelievable.

So how could this possibly have been led to happen? Can you imagine if it was a National Government taking the voice away from these workers and these unions? Can you imagine the uproar from that side of the House if it had been a National Government doing that? So here we are, under urgency, being held to ransom, that of course we have to support this or all we do is punish those workers, the 65,000 care and support workers that it applies to. Society is judged on how a society looks after their most vulnerable. Well, I hope this Government is well and truly judged in about 14 months’ time on how they have treated these care and support workers.

So the aged-care sector, as my colleague the Hon Michael Woodhouse has said, is just on its knees at the moment. We have had managers in a state of absolute raw emotion telling us how bad the aged-care sector is. We know that across the country, 700 beds have been closed over the last few months; 180 in our own area, Otago-Southland alone, have been closed. So these workers in these aged-care facilities and supporting people in their homes—that probably should be in the aged-care facilities, but there aren’t beds for them—are absolutely critical. To have left them like this and offered them that 4.6 percent increase, well below what would be inflation—so that’s 4.6 percent over 18 months; only just over 3 percent over a year—is to have left our aged-care sector on its knees. They can’t get nurses, they rely on these care workers and they are left to this Government not getting the legislation sorted, not getting their wage agreements sorted—it’s just unbelievable.

I would have, on a weekly basis, people coming to my office with concerns about the care that they are getting in their homes from support workers and care workers. Not the workers’ fault in any way at all, but workers not turning up, not having enough time to meet their needs because there isn’t enough of them. So how do you think it helps them if they are disrespected in this way, how does it help to keep and recruit workers in the support and care areas?

💬 Hon Andrew Little: The member’s party set the pay rates.

💬 Hon Member: Five years ago.

The member’s party set the pay rates five years ago that ranged between 15 and 50 percent over five years, which is considerably more than 4.6 percent over two years. So we have left these vulnerable workers who look after our most vulnerable people in society. We have left them and we have hung them out to dry—or this Government has hung them out to dry. They have got no voice in this process at all. Their unions can’t represent them in a normal negotiation process. And goodness, as a chief executive, I can see how valuable that has been over the number of years. But this Labour Government, steeped in union organisers, has taken away the voice of the unions. It’s unbelievable. They’ve taken away the voice of the workers. No select committee process—we’re standing here doing it under urgency because there is no select committee process. And so there is no opportunity for them to say, “Oh, actually we don’t think full 4.6 percent over 18 months is good enough. It’s well below inflation.”

We’ve all heard the speakers from the other side saying how wonderfully important these workers are, how it’s mainly women, how it’s mainly Māori women, they are so incredibly important. Well, not very important, if they’re being offered 4.6 percent over 18 months, not very important at all. Not important enough to match the inflation rate for them. So hollow words from the other side. They have no opportunity, as they would have in a normal negotiation of a settlement, to say, “We’re worth more than this. We’re looking after these people that need to be looked after. We’re going to be going backwards because you’re offering us less than inflation.” No opportunity whatsoever for those workers that you purport to represent as a Labour Government. So they are sitting out there, waiting for legislation to give them a settlement that they just have to accept, that comes nowhere near what I’m sure they would be wanting to ask for.

Because this Government had five years when they should have addressed this and they did absolutely nothing. Well, no, that’s not true. They didn’t do nothing. They set aside half a billion dollars to pay consultants to rearrange a health sector, which I’m really keen to see how that’s going to go, having looked at how badly their rearrangement and centralisation of the polytech sector has gone. I’m very keen to be talking about that a bit more, given how badly that’s been exposed. Actually, that’s going to be another interesting one for us to talk about when redundancies get announced before consultation, and I would have thought unions would have seen things like that happening as a lack of good faith and predetermination. So clearly, perhaps, this Labour Government isn’t as joined to the hips with the union as they might have once been, because they seem to be running roughshod over all the normal union processes that you would expect to happen.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! I call on Jo Luxton.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Mānawatia a Matariki. [We welcome and celebrate Matariki.] Can I just take a moment just to acknowledge our care and support workers across the country, who, as the previous speaker mentioned, do such an outstanding job for many of our most vulnerable in our communities.

What I find outrageous is the comments from opposite, whereby suggesting that this side of the House do not take into account the concerns and the voices of the care workers and support workers when the principal Act, section 8, that was put in place under that previous Government—existing claims were extinguished and potential claims were barred. Now, that completely takes away the voice of those particular workers. My colleagues on this side of the House have talked about many of the things that will be amended within this piece of legislation. I am very, very pleased to see that one thing that is not being amended is the fact that section 8 of the principal Act will be expiring on 30 June, and this side of the House is not changing that. Therefore, any claim or potential claim on behalf of support workers will be able to be raised going forward in the future. Now, if that is not listening to the voice of the sector, I don’t know what is. I commend this bill to the House.