Minimum Wage and Remuneration Amendment Bill

DARIEN FENTON (Labour) Link to this

I move, That the Minimum Wage and Remuneration Amendment Bill be now read a first time. It gives me great pleasure to introduce the first reading of this bill, and at the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be considered by the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. The Minimum Wage and Remuneration Amendment Bill provides that the Governor-General is able, by Order in Council, to make regulations prescribing the minimum rates of remuneration payable to any person working under a contract for services. Such minimum rates may be prescribed as a monetary amount or as a percentage of any other minimum rate prescribed under the regulations.

The bill does not attempt to define the difference between independent contractors and employees. It simply sets out a process for minimum remuneration to be determined for contractors and enables that to be enforced. Contractors lack the most fundamental of protections—the right to be paid no less than what is considered socially acceptable for other workers who have the protection of the minimum wage. Minimum remuneration is a baseline protection and should apply equally to all workers, regardless of whether they are in a traditional employment relationship or whether they have entered into a contract for services. This bill will provide that protection.

The intent of the bill is not to defeat agreements being made under commercial relationships between two parties. It is not designed to restrict those who are entrepreneurs making whatever arrangements suit when contracting for services, but there is a difference between workers who depend on selling their services in order to survive and entrepreneurs who invest capital and hire workers.

Like the rest of the world, New Zealand has experienced a rapidly changing labour market. The nature of the world of work has changed dramatically and will continue to change in the future. Over the past 15 years there has been a growth in non-standard employment, from full-time permanent employment to part-time casual temporary and contracted jobs. Employment patterns in a range of sectors and industries have changed drastically, and contract work is becoming one of the most preferred work arrangements of employers throughout the world. It is the new casualisation. As with almost all atypical work, contracting is contributing to a growing disparity between the actual results of the labour market and labour laws, where protections for workers are based on the traditional employment relationship.

New Zealand has seen considerable growth in the number of self-employed as a percentage of the total workforce. Approximately 20 percent of the labour market is described as self-employed, and is likely to be working under a contract for services. Who are these workers? Many immigrants opt for this kind of employment because of the difficulty in obtaining suitable waged or salaried employment. They are likely to be Māori and Pacific Islanders. New Zealand women are becoming self-employed at over twice the rate of men, yet most of those businesses start smaller, remain smaller, and generate lower incomes.

Contract workers are used in both the private and public sectors in a broad range of industries. There are many reasons why firms often prefer to obtain services through means other than employment contracts, such as simplified payroll and human resources administration and greater flexibility in terms of dealing with workers. For many contract workers this works well, and, in fact, they will be earning well above the equivalent to the current minimum wage. But having no floor above which remuneration can be paid means that some companies are unfairly exploiting the competition between contractors.

Contracting arrangements are often used for the purpose of denying rights and avoiding obligations under labour laws. Where independent and dependent contracting is used improperly, the consequences for those who perform the work are losses in wages, job security, and working conditions. Differences in the treatment of workers on the basis of the contractual form of their work relationship can induce the stronger party, usually the purchaser of labour, to create less-regulated commercial relationships over more-regulated employment relationships. This creates a downward pressure on wages, working conditions, and living standards for other workers.

Numerous examples of contracting are occurring in New Zealand, including, for example, in personal care, forestry, construction, courier services, transport, agriculture, and telecommunications. Pamphlet and newspaper deliveries used to be the domain of young people trying to earn a few extra dollars, but today parents and older people are very often contracted for these deliveries. Although some of us might think it is OK to pay young workers very little—and I am not one of them—this kind of contract work becomes a real problem when families and older workers are relying on it as a source of income.

Contracting often comes in the guise of a commercial contract in which labour is the main service provided. Contractors work for one employer or company, or even a former employer. Although the Employment Relations Authority has the ability to investigate the real nature of an employment relationship—and there is established case law on the definitions of contractors versus employees—workers can be accorded the status, rights, and protections of employees only if they undertake the risk and expense of challenging their employer in court.

This bill is not about whether or not someone is an employee but whether that person should be afforded some basic protection in law. Social security, health and safety protection, and accident compensation are already provided to workers who are not considered employees. So what is so different about providing the protection of a minimum level of remuneration? Information on contractors and what they are paid is not available in New Zealand. I have no doubt that at the select committee there will be many complex arguments about different arrangements, and they will need to be considered carefully. But this bill raises the question of whether we consider it acceptable in a First World economy like New Zealand’s to allow arrangements whereby workers can be used to work for less than a socially accepted minimum remuneration.

My bill will provide minimum protection for those contractors who have little experience and no advice, and who are vulnerable to exploitation. It will also put some minimal controls on the vicious practice of underbidding for contracts for services. If we are serious about improving the earnings of all New Zealanders, this House cannot continue to ignore the growing group of workers who make an important contribution to our economy and our society but who are denied this most basic right in law to minimum pay. New Zealanders believe in fairness, and this means ensuring some equality of treatment for workers, regardless of their legal employment status. We need this most basic of protections to reflect the realities of new forms of work, and to keep pace with the changing world of work in the 21st century.

Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) Link to this

It certainly is embarrassing, is it not, to see in the House tonight Mr Phillip Field, who I guess has been press-ganged today into voting for the Minimum Wage and Remuneration Amendment Bill. In fact, I saw the whip approach him earlier. Was there a bit of a question as to how Mr Field would vote on the bill? Will he eat—I guess one might say—humble pie and curry favour? Will he speak on the bill, because I would certainly be very interested in what he had to say? What is even more remarkable is that Labour would have the gall to introduce the bill at this stage. This will not help its situation of embarrassment.

I draw the House’s attention to this particular fact in the Ingram report. I asked a question today of the Minister of Labour, who is sitting in the House tonight. My question was really quite straightforward, and I will read it out again, just for the Minister’s benefit: “Does the Minister have any concerns that Dr Ingram was not satisfied about the authenticity of the invoices provided by Mr Field for the work at 51 Church Street, and surely that means the department must investigate whether these people were in fact employees,”. Do members know what her answer was? She was not concerned; she did not care that Dr Ingram questioned the authenticity of invoices. This is important because it actually goes to the very heart of work relationships. Genuine invoices, such as Dr Ingram expected to see, are evidence of an independent contract relationship. The authenticity of the invoices has been extensively questioned in the report, and if the Minister of Labour cared to read the report—I guess she has not done so—she would know he raised the gravest of questions about the authenticity of those invoices.

When one has to raise that question, the issue becomes whether those people were employees. I have to say I believe the Department of Labour, which has independent investigatory powers under both the minimum wages legislation and the Employment Relations Act, should be digging deep on that issue. The validity or “authenticity”—to use Dr Ingram’s word—of those invoices goes to the very question of the relationship. If they are authentic, then one might say the people are independent contractors. If they are not authentic, and that is what Dr Ingram questioned—

GORDON COPELAND (United Future) Link to this

I rise to take a brief call on the Minimum Wage and Remuneration Amendment Bill. Firstly, I congratulate Darien Fenton on having a bill drawn in the ballot. I know, from my first term in Parliament, that it is always quite a thrill. It would be like winning Lotto.

HONE HARAWIRA (Māori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) Link to this

Kia ora tātou te Whare.There has been a lot of debate in the media about whether we can afford to increase the minimum wage. Earlier this year we saw a big debate over Sue Bradford’s bill to amend the minimum wage order in order to stop employers setting low youth rates, and now we have this bill to amend the Act to ensure that contractors are also covered. The questions are, how much will it cost and can we afford it? In fact, the real question is whether we can afford not to. The minimum wage is $10.25 an hour, and the minimum youth wage is $8.20. That is simply not enough.

Just a couple of weeks back, while the House was in adjournment, the Government tabled the Social Report 2006, which showed what we have been saying for yonks—that is, the number of poor people in this country has nearly doubled in only 6 years. The proportion of the population with low incomes shows that 19 percent were living below the 60 percent threshold in 2004 compared with just 12 percent in 1998, and that those experiencing severe hardship had greatly increased, as well. The same report also pointed out that the proportion of poor people who spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing has more than doubled in that time.

It is not just about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. One does not have to be a rocket scientist to work out that those who are suffering are those who live in Māngere and Northcote rather than in Remuera and Takapuna. In fact, the New Zealand income survey shows that the average income for Māori is $471 per week, compared with $598 for non-Māori—a difference of $127 per week. Māori’s history as the lowest-paid group in the workforce, and the problems that result from that poverty. are the reasons why on many, many occasions in this House, the Māori Party has condemned low rates of pay as a form of economic violence.

It was with that knowledge that we went into last year’s election with a bid to raise the minimum wage to $12.50 per hour, because when we feed the worker, we feed the whānau, nurture the well-being and safety of children, and offer hope for their future. Yet this is not a call from the Māori Party. In a country that likes to pride itself on its growth and its wealth, it is to our enduring shame that we can even have an organisation called the Child Poverty Action Group. Yet we do. That group has also supported the call for a rise in the minimum wage in order for our poorest children’s life chances to improve. The key aim of the fast-food workers’ “Supersize my pay!” campaign is to raise the minimum wage to $12 an hour. Unions have been pushing for it for years; so have the Greens. So we are in good company in supporting this bill today.

There are many workers in forestry, construction, courier services, transport, labour hire, pamphlet delivery, and other such services who may be exploited through unfair contracting. So the changes proposed by Darien Fenton to ensure that contractors must be paid a minimum rate are a positive move for both youth and adult workers. But I have one word of caution for the select committee. We note the results of a major study carried out by Gail Pacheco, a senior economics lecturer at the Auckland University of Technology, which suggested that Māori and Pasifika will be the ones most adversely affected by a rise in the minimum wage. In her study she noted that Māori and Pasifika made up more than 20 percent of low-income workers, and that if the increased minimum wage were approved, it would be they who got the sack first if employers were forced to lay off staff. How sad that is, but, unfortunately, how true as well.

The Māori Party supports this bill because it is part of our campaign against the wages of poverty and the deprivation that poor people suffer. But we caution against any move that may further jeopardise the standing of the workers in bro’Town. Kia ora tātou.

PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) Link to this

Let me be clear from the outset. New Zealand First is not supporting the Minimum Wage and Remuneration Amendment Bill because, basically, we do not see a need for it. Not one person or contractor has come to us and said he or she needed Parliament’s help to get a fair deal; not one person. The contractors I have spoken to—and I have spoken to a few recently—say: We’re doing OK, Peter. We don’t need your help. Don’t come and interfere. We can do it OK.”

I listened to the member from the Māori Party who has just resumed his seat. I sympathise with him and the case he was espousing. He was talking about employees who are earning a low minimum wage. That is why New Zealand First included in its confidence and supply agreement the proposal to increase the minimum wage to $12 an hour within this term of Government.

I say to the honourable member Darien Fenton that in her letter she did not make clear the explanation of what she is trying to achieve. With due respect to the member—and I do not want to break confidences—I asked her what the bill was about and she said the select committee could sort that out. New Zealand First is not prepared to sort bills out at the select committee, if we do not understand what they are trying to achieve in the first place and if we think they are to the detriment of the country as a whole. In her letter to me she writes at one point: “I note that many jurisdictions throughout the world are seeking ways to extend minimum labour protections to those not in traditional employer-employee relationships.”

Why did she not give us some examples? Why do we have to research that to see the substance of it? We would have appreciated some examples. I will give the honourable member an example. Someone wants to paint a house, and agrees on 10 hours’ work at $20 an hour, and the first day is rained out. So in effect it doubles the time, and, obviously, if the employer and employee stick to the contract rate, it goes from 10 hours at $20 an hour to 20 hours at $10 an hour. Would that contractor have a claim against the owner who wants the house painted? I ask Mr Copeland whether he thinks the contractor has a claim against the householder who has engaged him to do the 10 hours’ work?

SUE BRADFORD (Green) Link to this

This is a good bill, and on behalf of the Green Party I would like to offer my congratulations to Darien Fenton on introducing it to the House. I am very pleased to hear that the Māori Party supports it, and very disappointed to hear what Peter Brown has just said, as surely, as a member of New Zealand First of all the parties, and as a gentleman who has talked a lot about the need to support and improve the lot of casual and low-paid workers, I think it is a disgrace that he has taken the position he has.

This bill closes another loophole in the Minimum Wage Act, a loophole that sees some workers being grossly exploited and being paid less than the minimum wage provisions of the Act. This bill could be called the “Minimum Wage (Abolition of Employment Status) Discrimination Bill”, and as such it is a good companion to my Minimum Wage (Abolition of Age Discrimination) Amendment Bill. Given the concern over recent weeks by a number of parties at the remuneration paid to individuals working on a contract for service on properties owned by a member of this House, I would hope, vainly I know, that this bill would receive unanimous support from all parties to go to the select committee.

It is anathema that in today’s world young people and those on contracts for service do not receive the full protection of the Minimum Wage Act. Such gross exploitation cannot be allowed to continue. My Minimum Wage (Abolition of Age Discrimination) Amendment Bill will stop this gross exploitation by removing the ability arbitrarily to discriminate on the grounds of age when minimum wages are set.

This new bill will address the gross exploitation of those workers who work under contracts for service. This includes not only the pamphlet deliverers mentioned in the explanatory note of the bill but also people such as painters, builders, pizza drivers, security officers, commission sales people, and many others. It must also include homeworkers—a growing but very vulnerable group of mainly women workers who attempt to stretch the family income through taking in work such as clothing manufacture, other light manufacturing, computer-based work, childcare, and so on. The exclusion of these people from minimum wage legislation simply on the basis that they are not employees in the legal sense of the term is wrong, and simply adds to the growing underclass that exists in this country. We have only to look at the recent New Zealand Living Standards report and S for confirmation that the gap between the well-off and the very poor is actually intensifying at the moment.

In many cases these people on contracts may even be employees within the meaning of the law, but low awareness of employment rights allows unscrupulous employers to convince them that they are contractors rather than employees. This is an increasing problem as more employers seek to escape their employment responsibilities by renaming employees as contractors. This small but growing group of employers is not only grossly exploiting those working for them but also putting better employers who play by the rules out of business by undercutting their prices.

I would expect employer groups to strongly support this bill, to protect their own members. However, I was disappointed to see the other day that the Employers and Manufacturers Association (Northern) is unfortunately once again opposing progressive employment legislation—and, in fact, turning its back on its own members who are law abiding on the whole—and, instead, siding with the exploitative employment practices of the undercutters and fly-by-nighters. With this amendment to the legislation in place, there will be less temptation for workers to be called contractors when they are not, or to be paid under the table rather than by proper wages taxed at source. I would think that the parties to my right would actually support that notion.

This bill will throw more light on the underground economy. It will see the regularisation of employment relations that are very much in the grey area at the moment, and we will all benefit by seeing a greater tax take that can fund our health, education, and social services.

Before I finish, I would just like to note a few concerns. Firstly, the proposed new section 4A(2) in clause 7 still provides for age discrimination. The Green Party believes that age discrimination is not acceptable in either contracts of service or contracts for services. Secondly, there does not appear to be any amendment to section 5 of the Minimum Wage Act to require an annual review of minimum remuneration for contractors. That might just be a drafting oversight. The real detail will come in the regulations prescribing minimum remuneration for contractors themselves. These will not be easy to draft, and will not come under select committee scrutiny prior to their being promulgated. However, I hope Darien will give an outline of the proposed regulations to the select committee.

The Greens will support this bill, and expect National especially to be a strong supporter of it. I also expect Darien Fenton and the Labour Party to continue to strongly support my Minimum Wage (Abolition of Age Discrimination) Amendment Bill, as I believe these two members’ bills belong together in helping to implement fundamental and much-needed reform of our minimum wage framework.

PAULA BENNETT (National) Link to this

I rise on the Minimum Wage and Remuneration Amendment Bill, and find just so many problems with it. Having read Darien Fenton’s letter about it, as well, I find—a little like Peter Brown—that it is just so hard to understand exactly what she is trying to accomplish. I suppose what it fundamentally comes down to, for us in the National Party, is that it is about freedom—freedom of choice and freedom for people to manage their own work to suit themselves. In many cases, that is why people choose to contract. They choose to go under a contract.

Let us take the example of pamphlet deliveries, because that is the one example I have heard Labour use. Under that example, we have people who will choose to take their time, who will choose to do the job at their own will or whim, who will stop and start, who will call into houses, and who actually like the freedom to be able to do the job without having to be under an hourly rate—or, as it would be, an hourly contract to someone. So they choose merely to be paid for what they deliver, and they are quite happy with that arrangement. I am in agreement with that, because I have yet to hear of someone who is unhappy with the arrangement, after talking to them and hearing of the freedom they enjoy.

It will be people such as older people who will find themselves out of a job, because employers in that situation will think that the push from the Government is to put people on an hourly rate. So they will put them under an hourly rate, but that will not be an ideal situation for many of them and they will choose not to do the job. They enjoy the freedom that comes with the work they can do.

A classic example was a contractor I was speaking to, with a very small business, who was contracting to go out and do gardens, and things like that. He did not sit down and think about how long it would take him to do the job; he worked out what he felt the job was worth, then he put a price to it, accordingly. Under this bill, it seems to be the case that, depending on the time it would take, it could actually cost a heck of a lot more for people to get their lawns or gardens done. So how can that be fair for anyone, because they will not then get the work? In the case of the person with the small business, he enjoys the freedom to work when he wants to, and to get the work done in the time he does it.

Under this bill, I am wondering, as well, how that would possibly work. Would people have to clock in for every 10 minutes they worked, and clock out for when they did not, then have that recorded? It is talked about that it will be legislated and investigated. Will we have labour investigators going out to look at how long jobs actually take, so that we can then decide? It could all be sorted out at the select committee, of course. The bill is about regulating the market even more, when it is the freedom of the market that works for people. It is as simple as that, really. We will be regulating, because we do not wish to let those people have a choice. In many cases, it really is about choice.

The other thing concerns the reason why people choose not to go into the contracted hourly rate of an employee. More often than not, when people are being paid by the hour, they feel as if their time is owned. As such, when I am an employee, my time is owned for the period of that job, and I am obliged to do the job at the pace required by my employer—and at the rate required by the employer. Again, that is taking away that choice.

I have concerns about another issue, and let us use the example of someone cleaning carpets. Like the member from United Future, I would go out and get different quotes for the job that is to be done, but then when that job is actually done I might look at it and think that it has not been done satisfactorily. The carpet cleaner then has to go back into the house and do the job again. So the cleaner has had to do twice the time for what the service had been contracted out for in the beginning, because the job had not been done effectively in the first place. So what does that mean? Because the job has taken the contractor twice as long, all of a sudden he or she may be outside the minimum hourly range and, as a consequence, the rate has to be cut.

It can be the same in the case of pamphlet deliveries, if we want to use that example. Occasionally a job is not done properly, so the contractor is told to go back and do it again, how to do it, and everything else. Because contractors are not doing jobs effectively in the designated times they agreed to themselves, and because they are having to do jobs twice when they have not been done properly, we will have labour inspectors coming along and having a look at that. It is just absolutely ridiculous. I cannot see how it will possibly work, and it is for that reason that National will most definitely be voting against it.

Hon RUTH DYSON (Minister of Labour) Link to this

What an extraordinary exposé of right-wing, pure ideology from that member. It is just extraordinary to steal language, words like “freedom”, and then put them alongside the right for people to be paid $1 an hour, $2 an hour, $3 an hour, or anything other than the minimum wage of $10.25, and call that freedom. What a disgrace to a civilised society that member is! She should hang her head in shame, and never come to this House and repeat that sort of ideological nonsense. It is just a total outrage.

For people who are the most vulnerable in our society to not be entitled to a minimum wage, in a civilised society in New Zealand in 2006, is just a disgrace. That member purports to understand what it is like for people who are in low-paid jobs, people who are struggling. That member, who brings out her tissues, has crocodile tears appearing because she had such a hard road to pave before her grand entry into this House. Then she comes into the House and says that people should have the freedom to work for less than the minimum wage. Well, if people want the freedom to be like that member, then I think we have a responsibility to save them from that fate. Anybody in New Zealand should be saved from the fate of being like that member; her speech was just a disgrace.

I want to congratulate Darien Fenton. She has been in this House for less than 12 months, and has produced a member’s bill that addresses a very fundamental flaw in our employment relations legislation, in that we do not have a minimum wage provision for those who are working under a contract for service. They may be vulnerable, they may not be very wise, they may decide to cut all sorts of corners in order to get a contract, so not only will this bill give those contractors legislative provision under the minimum wage legislation but it will also ensure that we have fair competition when we are looking at the contracts we provide for.

So the bill seeks to amend the Minimum Wage Act 1983 in order to extend the minimum wage provisions to apply to payments under a contract for service. It is important in a civilised society, as New Zealand prides itself on being, that we should not have people who are able, because they need to undercut another competitor, to do a contract for something that may be doing them or their subcontractors no good at all. It is very ironic that Dr Mapp raised the matter of that legislative gap in the House prior to the adjournment, and again today. Dr Mapp identified that it was a flaw in employment relations legislation, but now, with such an extraordinary attitude, has come into this House and attacked the very legislation designed to fix the flaw he identified. It is no wonder that member is regarded by employers and employees up and down the country as having no integrity when it comes to matters of honesty, openness, and genuineness in ensuring that what one says in the House, and what one says outside, are consistent. I am delighted to support this bill, and I look forward to its progress through the House.

DARREN HUGHES (Junior Whip—Labour) Link to this

I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I see that the member for Nelson, the Hon Dr Nick Smith, has come into the Chamber. I understood very clearly that he was suspended from the House, or was asked to withdraw from the House, this afternoon for the remainder of the sitting day, because of his behaviour, so I am very surprised to see him in here right now.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) Link to this

The member has been advised that he is out of the House until 10 o’clock, so I ask him to leave. Members will please be seated until the member leaves.

LINDSAY TISCH (Senior Whip—National) Link to this

I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I accept your ruling, Madam Assistant Speaker. The member’s bill that we are about to debate is in Dr Nick Smith’s name. I ask that leave be granted for him to make his 10-minute speech. It is his bill; it has been drawn out of the ballot, and he has put much time and effort into it. I ask for your reconsideration to enable him to speak for his 10 minutes and, following that, to leave the House, then to return for his 5-minute right of reply.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) Link to this

First, another member can move the bill, but what I would say to the National Party whip is that the member’s behaviour was grossly disorderly and he was lucky to get away with just having to leave the House. So the request is not granted by me. Does the member wish to put it as leave?

LINDSAY TISCH (Senior Whip—National) Link to this

I seek leave for Dr Nick Smith to be allowed to return to the House to take a 10-minute call on the bill in his name, and for him to make a 5-minute reply at the end of that debate.

Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) Link to this

I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. You will be well aware of the practice of Speakers to do reconsiderations in circumstances like this. I have been in the House a number of years and I have certainly seen Speakers do that. I put it to you, Madam Assistant Speaker, that it would be appropriate to follow the precedents of other Speakers in these kinds of circumstances.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) Link to this

The member is lucky to remain here, because he is contesting my ruling. I have already ruled on the matter. It is not a precedent; matters are dealt with as they are seen by Speakers. As I said before, this member was lucky to get away with just being asked to leave the House.

DARIEN FENTON (Labour) Link to this

First, I thank the various parties—the Māori Party, the Greens, United Future, and, of course, the Labour Party—for their contributions and their support. I do appreciate very much their understanding that this is a situation of workers’ rights, regardless of the legal form the work takes. I also appreciate the parties that are prepared to consider this as a genuine concern, not a political football.

I take the opportunity to say to Dr Mapp that if he wants to talk to me about the financial report of the Service and Food Workers Union, I have it here. I am very happy to help him read a balance sheet because I do not think Investigate is able to do it, and I do not think that he is able to do it, either. I am very happy to do that outside of the House if the member would like to do so.

The starting point of the bill is that this is a dimension of labour regulation that should be extended to all workers who are economically dependent on the sale of their capacity to work. As Peter Brown mentioned, I did say that many countries now accept that the traditional concept of an employee no longer provides a satisfactory basis for delineating the scope of labour law. If Mr Brown had asked me, I would have been very happy to provide him with the research I have done. I have worked on this issue for many, many years, going right back to 1998 at the International Labour Organization conference when it looked at the issue around the scope of employment and labour legislation. In Britain, for example, the concept of a worker corresponding with what we call a dependent contractor is now part of the law. It is an attempt to shift the boundary of labour protection to self-employed workers who are not genuinely in business on their own account.

There is no worry about those who are doing well, but there is a worry about those who are not. I would like to let Dr Mapp know about correspondence I have had recently from somebody in his own electorate who applied for a job where paper runners of all ages were being sought, but specifying students, at-home parents, and retired people. On phoning, this person was told that the pay rate for delivering 100 to 125 newspapers is between $3 and $5 for each run, and that the workers have to provide their own trundlers, etc. Is that acceptable? I do not think so.

There is widespread agreement that the traditional legal categories, which are also current in New Zealand—and there are many, many names for them, such as employee, independent contractor, dependent contractor, contract for services, labour subcontractor, labour-only contractor, etc.—no longer fit with the economic and social reality of today’s work relations. This is a challenge for all of us, and this bill represents a very small step towards dissolving the distinction in rights between employees and the self-employed—or contractors—for the purposes of minimum labour protection.

I do not understand the National Party’s reluctance to extend rights to the self-employed who are contracting for services. I recall its criticism of this Government for not providing in a hurry paid parental leave to the self-employed. I am sure it would not want to remove accident compensation, health and safety rights, and social insurance from them, either. So what is the difference in providing the very basic protection of minimum remuneration in law?

The rationale for this bill is fairness and social justice. Fairness requires that similarly situated individuals be treated equally—that is, people who are depending on the sale of their labour should be treated similarly regardless of the form the transaction takes. The social justice argument is that all workers should be protected against harms and risks that are broadly seen as being unacceptable. Minimum wage or remuneration is one of the things our society and all parties have seen as a necessary floor below which people should not be required to provide their labour. There is no more justification for permitting discrimination in terms of minimum wage or remuneration against any worker who provides services personally, regardless of the contractual arrangement under which the service is provided, than there is for permitting racial or sexual discrimination against any worker.

The point of this bill is not to facilitate workers who are contractors to reach the very hard goal of proving they are employees; it is to provide for a minimum entitlement of remuneration regardless of their legal status. New Zealanders believe in fairness and justice; they believe that people should be treated equally. That is what this bill is about.

DARIEN FENTON (Labour) Link to this

I move, That the Minimum Wage and Remuneration Amendment Bill be referred to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee referred to Transport and Industrial Relations Committee