Minimum wage: Tariana Turia

25 February 2006

Maori Party position on Minimum wage

Tariana Turia,Co-leader Maori Party

22 February 2006

The Maori Partywill be supporting the Minimum Wage (Abolition of AgeDiscrimination) Amendment Bill before this House, in itsdirection to abolish age discrimination.

In ourworldview, to arbitrarily single out any one age group, anddiscriminate against it, is entirely contrary to therecognition that it is the breadth and collective strengthof people that is our wealth.

I thank Sue Bradford and theGreen Party for introducing this legislation. Others willwant to take the credit for it, but no one has stood up for16 and 17 year olds. I have not heard anybody talk aboutthat before, so I thank the Greens for that.

We canappreciate what employers are saying, and understand theirconcerns that their ability to select their preferredworkforce, is being constrained by another intervention,even one with good intentions such as this - by theGovernment.

Having been an employer myself, however, Iknow I would not expect young trainee employees to carry outcomplex duties which I would expect more experiencedemployees to carry out.

I would expect that those Iemployed on the minimum wage, would be performing at thelevel of the basic skills that you would expect to see atthe lower ends of the salary range.

It does not matterhow old a person in a new job is, that person needstraining. Frankly, when I see those young people pushingthose trolleys around car-parks I do not think too manysixty-year-olds would want to perform that job, certainlyfor a minimal wage.

The central concept in this Bill isthe word discrimination. The current Bill discriminatesagainst those rangatahi who are aged 16 to17, by droppingthe minimum rates to $7.60 an hour. Those rangatahi aretomorrow's parents, workers, leaders, helpers, spokespeopleand mentors.

In order to ensure that rangatahi have theability, confidence and support to fulfil those roles to thevery best of their ability, we need to ensure that there isnothing that we are doing - as part of the Government, aswhanau, as community - which limits or impedes theirdevelopment. They are tomorrow's managers.

It is aquestion of justice. We must remove the discriminatoryaspects of the Minimum Wage Act 1983, in the interests ofour young people, which in the end is in the interests ofour nation.

We have heard some shocking stories from rightaround the country about youth rates. We have heard about15 year olds working long hours, being paid $5 an hour forstacking supermarket shelves. And that's legal.

The MaoriParty has a particular concern about the injustice currentlypermitted by the legislation, given the demographics of ourpopulation.

Almost half of the Maori population is under18 years old - forty-three percent compared to the non-Maoripopulation, on twenty-four percent.

In real numbers, whenwe look at the age range, 10 years to 18 years; it's afigure of 103,158. That's a lot of young people on youthrates.

We know that for far too many of our young people,the crisis of poverty that racks this nation has pushed themliterally out the door - out of their homes - into theworkplace.

This House needs no reminding of the realitythat the Maori poverty rate is over 50% more than thenon-Maori rate.

We must also consider the reality thatone in five children live in low-income families - which isnearly twice the level of the late 1980s.

Alongside this,the employment security that previous generations enjoyedhas mostly disappeared, with many training and educationoptions being too costly to pursue to a level whereemployment and income security is more assured.

I heard amember from National say that that is how one gets ahead andhow one moves on to higher wages at a later stage in life. Well that is fine talk if one has money. Some people do notknow what it is like to have no money and just to focus onliving from day to day.

Finally, I want to return to theissue of discrimination and raise the obvious anomaly ofthis Bill. It is to do with disabled workers.

During ourdiscussions with our constituents about this Bill, we haveheard about intellectually disabled employees who know thatthey are being exploited, who know that they are beingabused, and that it is legal. Yet this Bill does nothing tochange the current law.

We will support this Bill throughto select committee to remove the current discriminationagainst 16 and 17 year old workers.

Members of thisHouse will be familiar with the whakatauki, Ma pango mawhero ka oti te mahi - interpreted in this context to meanthat old and young, in fact all peoples, can work togetherand be rewarded equally for this work. It is a worthy goalto work towards.

ENDS

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