Living wage cut from government contracts: Will Winston Peters ride to the rescue to help low-wage workers - Shane Te Pou

Will Winston Peters ride to the rescue for low-wage workers as Nicola WIllis plans to remove a living wage requirement for businesses seeking government contracts?

THREE KEY FACTS:

• The current living wage rate is $27.80 an hour, from September it goes up to $28.95.
• The Government plans to reduce the number of rules for tendering contracts to help local businesses, with Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis aiming to remove one-third of 71 rules, including the living wage requirement.
• Union E tū said the move would send some of those workers into poverty and was ‘heartless’.

You know who’s had it good for too long? Cleaners, catering staff, and security guards.

The people who clean the loos, keep people fed, and put their bodies on the line to keep others safe – they don’t deserve a living wage. Or, at least, that’s what Christopher Luxon and Nicola Willis reckon.

Under a press release bizarrely titled “Going for growth: New procurement rules”, Willis announced that the Government plans to remove the requirement that government contractors pay cleaners, caterers, and security guards the living wage. Instead, they can be paid as low as the minimum wage – five bucks an hour less.

How, exactly, is making workers poorer and giving them less to spend in the economy going to improve economic growth?

Even more bizarrely, Government ministers said it was fine for these workers to not get the living wage anymore, because they could get Working for Families and other income support to partially plug the gap from the pay cut. Huh?

So the plan is: make workers poorer – decreasing the amount they spend in their local communities and the amount they pay in taxes, both of which will make the Government’s books worse – and then spend more taxpayer money on income support.

That’s not smart procurement. That’s going to leave both the workers and the Government worse off.

It’s dumb from a business point of view and, worse, it’s heartless.

The dead-eyed looks on Government ministers’ faces said it all when they were asked to explain why the people who clean their offices, staff the Beehive cafe, and keep them safe at work deserve a pay cut. They can’t put themselves in the shoes of ordinary working people.

Cleaners, caterers, security guards - all workers in what Luxon and Willis might consider menial jobs – they’re people too. They deserve dignity in their work and an income they can live a decent life with.

The difference between the 2025 minimum wage and living wage is $200 a week for a fulltime worker. That’s serious money for most people – and it’s life-altering for a low-wage family.

Why on earth is the Government picking on these workers, while shovelling out billions in tax cuts to landlords?

It’s bad enough that the Government has managed to lose over 30,000 jobs out of the economy in the past year. Now, it’s out to cut wages, as well.

It looks like an intentional kick in the guts for hard-working New Zealanders.

And Kiwis know it stinks: 62% of people polled want the living wage requirements to stay, while only 23% want them gone.

The question is, will Winston Peters and New Zealand First step up to save the living wage for these workers?

Willis’ anti-living wage edict will still have to go through Cabinet for sign-off. At that point, Peters can say “no way, you’re not ripping off working Kiwis” and block it - or he can do nothing and wave it through.

New Zealand First wants to be seen as a party for the working class, well here’s the chance to prove it when it matters. It’s also a chance for the party to put some distance between itself and Luxon’s sinking ship before the next election.

Peters has recently shown he’s perfectly capable of out-foxing Willis. He got himself appointed Minister for Rail and took the inter-island ferry debacle off her hands. He then promptly saved rail on the Interislanders for decades to come, despite Willis spending a year and wasting a billion dollars trying to kill it.

Peters deftly ripped up Willis’ plan and went most of the way back to the plan he developed with Labour in 2017-2020, all while praising Willis for her efforts. It was canny politics from a master politician.

Now, Peters can use those same skills to put the kibosh on Willis’ wage cut plans as well.

If I was advising Peters, I would tell him to stop wasting political capital trying to rark-up the small numbers of ‘anti-woke’ weirdos. Instead, he can have real successes and represent the majority of voters on issues they actually care about by focusing on concrete things - such as the ferries and the living wage.

Working-class voters are going to be watching this issue and seeing whether New Zealand First really stands with them - because it’s clear the rest of this Government doesn’t.