Employment Relations Amendment Bill

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) Link to this

I am very happy to take my additional 4 minutes and 30 seconds of speaking time, and probably a couple of other calls, as well, because this is a very important opportunity to finally get answers from Minister Kate Wilkinson on the questions we have been asking throughout the Committee stage. Of course, because the bill has not been to a select committee, we are entitled to scrutinise it in a very in-depth way in the Committee stage. There is a wide-ranging debate on clauses 1 and 2 when a bill has not been to a select committee.

I believe there are a number of questions that the Minister should respond to. The first one is why does this legislation have to go through all its stages under urgency when it does not come into effect until 1 April next year—the April Fool’s joke, as we have described it in this House over the last day? It is important for the Minister to explain why the bill is going through under urgency. Even the New Zealand Herald cannot understand why it is going through under urgency, “other than to give the perception that the Government has ‘momentum’ ”. Well, that is not very satisfactory, and I believe that the Government should explain why this bill is being rushed through all its stages without going to a select committee, and without democratic input. Because the bill is not coming into effect until 1 April, there is plenty of time to send it to a select committee, to call for submissions, and to have it still take effect from 1 April next year.

The second question that the Minister has not yet responded to is the question of immigration visa status. One of the subsequent questions that really follows on from the one I have asked is whether the Immigration Service will now decline to accept, as a job offer, anything that contains within it a trial provision. Of course, if the Immigration Service continues to accept job offers for the purpose of allocating points under the skilled migration scheme, then the trial provision actually negates the whole purpose of having a large number of points attributed to the job offer because it does not mean anything. After 90 days the person may not have a job, and the whole point of having a high number of points allocated to the job offer is to ensure that people are actually able to settle well in New Zealand and bring their skills into New Zealand and into skilled employment. That is a very serious question; the Minister has not responded to the question of how the Immigration Service will respond to trial provisions within an employment agreement. The Minister has stood up in this House on other occasions and said that it is just a matter of choice, and that people can freely negotiate one of these provisions into their agreement. But when people are desperate to find their way into New Zealand and are prepared to accept any terms and conditions—and the Minister will find that out in her role as Associate Minister of Immigration—they will sign up to trial provisions if that requirement is placed upon them.

The third question that the Minister has not responded to concerns the particular vulnerability of young people going into their first jobs. They are entitled to know what their employer expects of them. It is not good enough that we let employers off the hook by saying they do not have a human resources department so therefore they will be let off the hook, or by saying they do not have to tell new employees what they expect from them and they can simply let them go. I think that the point I was making last night was a very serious one. When employers can simply let someone go without any explanation, without any reason being given, they could have breaches of our human rights laws at the back of their minds but they will certainly not bring them to the forefront. They may want to dismiss people when they turn up at work on Monday and find out that their manager has hired a Māori, someone from an Asian country, or a woman—God forbid. So sexism and racism can occur under this legislation.

Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) Link to this

In listening to this debate people would believe that only trade unionists, trendy lefties, and Wellington’s useless bureaucrats were interested in this bill. But I have to tell the National Government that there is a lot of interest in this bill around New Zealand, and that came home to me last night when I went to the Rongotai College prize-giving. The first person I spoke to was a National Party member and campaign organiser. He said: “I do not like the bill the National Party has brought into Parliament. I do not like it and I don’t think it is fair.” One of National’s own members said that last night. National members think this is just our issue, but I tell them that it is becoming their issue. The second person who spoke to me was the wife of one of the people there last night. She said that she had been listening to the debate and that she knew how it worked. I said: “Do you?”, and she said: “Yes. My daughter is in the UK. She got a job under a 90-day rule. After 2 months they came into her office and said ‘We don’t think you’re enjoying the job.’ She said ‘But I am enjoying the job.’ They said ‘We don’t think you’re enjoying the job; please pack your bag and go.’ ” This woman had no rights. She had to go, and she left on that day. That is exactly what will happen to New Zealanders under this legislation.

I know that Kate Wilkinson has not been taking calls in this debate. She has not been undertaking her duty as a Minister. I know that when in Opposition Kate Wilkinson liked to ask multiple-choice questions to Ministers on the Government side of the House. I do not want to bring the Chairperson into the debate, but I happen to know that the person sitting next to the Minister faced quite a number of such questions from her. So I have a few today; they are quite easy to answer. The Minister can put up her hand if the answer is yes, or she can at least move in the chair. Can the Minister tell this Committee whether teachers in schools with fewer than 20 staff will be covered? Is the Minister right that they will be covered, is Anne Tolley right that they will not be covered, or does nobody know? What is the answer? Does the Minister know? Is Anne Tolley right, or does nobody know?

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) Link to this

I want to pick up where my colleague Annette King left off and raise a couple of other points. I made a statement to the Minister, who resides occasionally in my electorate of Waimakariri. In my electorate there is a two to three-teacher school called View Hill School. At a candidates’ meeting in the Rangiora War Memorial Hall, the issue of what Anne Tolley had said was raised. Anne Tolley said that the Employment Relations Amendment Bill would not apply to teachers. I recall the member who is now the Minister of Labour addressing the meeting with a lot of weasel words. I think Kate Wilkinson might have called me a liar at the meeting; in fact, I am sure she did when I addressed her about her ambiguous statements. She said at that meeting that those provisions would not apply, and that I was lying. If that is the position, and they do not apply, then I ask her to tell us now as the Minister—she has the warrant, the authority, because it is her bill—to confirm what she said. The Minister should get up and do that now, because if she does not, the counterfactual prevails, and then we will know that those provisions do apply to teachers.

Why will the Minister not get up and confirm an answer to such a simple question? Surely, if the Minister is not bright enough she could turn to her officials and ask them. They will give her the answer, they can pass a note, and then the Minister could perhaps put at ease the student teachers and the teacher population of New Zealand.

I will raise another issue in respect of occupational safety and health. What happens to a worker in a sawmill who is employed under the 90-day probation provisions, and maybe there is a shonky employer? The worker does not want to use the saw, because it is not safe as there is no guard on it, so he says to the boss: “I don’t feel right about this. I might cut my hand off. I might injure my mates when I am using it.” The worker may say: “You have not trained me, within the 90-day probation period, to use it properly, so I am concerned that I might injure myself or injure my mates. Will you train me?”—because we know there is a cost in training. The boss then gives the worker a pink slip and tells him to take a hike.

How will the Minister and her department police that? When that person has been sacked, it is his or her word against the word of the boss. How will that worker be protected? He or she has no personal grievance rights, no rights to anything—they have gone—and all the worker asked for was a safe workplace.

I remember that Minister bleating at every candidates’ meeting in my electorate when we talked about things like workers having safe workplaces. It actually makes sense to a boss to have a safe workplace, and most bosses have safe workplaces because it saves them money, of course. That member bleated that this was all nanny State. She loved going around saying “nanny State”—that to have a safe workplace is to have a nanny State. She said: “Nanny State, it’s time for a change, choose a brighter future.”, but she will not actually get up now and answer questions. The lips flapped away during the election campaign, but she will not get up now—on her quarter of a million dollar salary, with the cars and the offices, and backed up by all the officials—and confirm two questions. The first question relates to occupational safety, and the second relates to the status of migrants on specific work permits. They are basic questions. There are several reasons why she will not confirm them. Either she is horribly embarrassed and ashamed, but I would say she is embarrassed, because she is not ashamed of anything, or she will show up Anne Tolley big time, or she does not know, or she is weak. The truth is probably that she does know. We are right, she knows we are right, and she does not want to tell the people of New Zealand and have it on the record of the House that National is seriously vulnerable on all counts on this legislation. Those can be the only answers.

I invite members opposite, some of her more experienced colleagues, to give her advice and to say that the job of a Minister is to confirm critical legislation so as to give stakeholders in the community certainty. The Minister is all for giving the bosses certainty—absolutely! Fire at will! But she will not give certainty to any of the stakeholders—the teachers, migrants, and people who are concerned about occupational safety.

CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour) Link to this

I had intended last night to ask the Minister of Labour, Kate Wilkinson, about an important question, but she must have been reading my mind because she answered it this morning in the Dominion Post. She said the Government was open to the possibility of extending the provisions of this bill to other workplaces, other than small and medium-sized enterprises. She said: “At this stage we are focusing on the small and medium-sized enterprises because they are struggling with compliance. Like anything, we’ll see how it works out and we are always open to ideas.” I want to make sure that people—especially the workers of this country—understand that they need to be very worried about this as the Minister signals the extension of this provision that will remove rights for all New Zealand workers. I think the Minister needs to wonder about the way workers will react to this news. We will certainly be making sure that we can provide her with the answer.

The Government’s arguments in favour of this bill have been that small businesses need this sort of provision. In the area of labour rights, clearly compliance with legislation is not a key factor. Unlike other provisions, such as taxation, where small businesses are expected to get on top of the issues and comply, in this area perhaps it is OK not to comply, and it is too difficult. Much has been made of the recommendations of the Small Business Advisory Group. I will refer to its most recent report, because the Minister spoke to us last night about the 2003-04 report. I had been an advisor to that group so I was present for the discussion on the 2008 report. A specific recommendation of that report was: “That information on good practice in employment relationships tailored to small business owners and managers, preferably endorsed by employer organisations, be made more readily available and be better promoted. This should include easier access to educational material and to support mechanisms (for example, free access to knowledgeable people who can provide practical and balanced advice to employers or employees on handling employment disputes).” This was an attempt by the Small Business Advisory Group to get past just calling for the removal of rights so as to look at a more responsible approach to getting on top of their employment relationship responsibilities.

The other reason the Government appears to be giving in favour of this legislation is that some workers may be more likely to be given a chance if they have their rights at work removed. I note that removing unfair dismissal rights for all workers was not signalled by the Government before the election, so I think that the comments this morning will cause some concern. Likewise will the comments about choice that have been made by those on the other side of the Chamber, that this will be a choice—people can choose at the start of the employment relationship. I want to know why the Minister is disregarding the advice of the Human Rights Commission, which notes its concern that the proposed legislation could impact negatively on school-leavers seeking their first job and on other vulnerable and disadvantaged groups. The commission recognises that at the point of employment many people will not have the knowledge or the confidence to make a fair choice on this matter. I would like to know the Minister’s view on that.

I am aware, from my many years of experience in the union movement, that “take it or leave it” propositions are quite common. Again, I would like to know whether the Minister is aware of that, or perhaps that is something that has never been raised with her by anybody. Especially in times of high unemployment, the bargaining power of workers is reduced. In fact the Employment Relations Act, to which this bill is an amendment, specifically, in the objects of the Act, recognises the inequality of bargaining power between workers and employers. It is a specific provision of this Act. In the real world we know that that is the case. We are amending an Act that in its objects specifically recognises the inequality of bargaining power. The Employment Relations Act also talks about building mutual trust and confidence and good faith in the workplace in order to develop productive employment relationships. That is certainly very important. I imagine that members on both sides of the Chamber recognise we need to lift productivity in this country.

SUE MORONEY (Labour) Link to this

This is a wide-ranging debate and it is the last opportunity in the Committee stage to get some answers to some very important and very detailed questions, which the public have the right to know. This is their only chance to have those questions answered, because the Minister in her wisdom has decided to shortcut the democratic process, to rush this legislation through, and to ensure that the public and the practitioners in this area do not get a chance to ask these questions themselves, through the select committee process. These questions must be answered in the Committee stage, because this is the last opportunity for the New Zealand public to learn and understand what on earth was in the Minister’s mind when she proposed this bill, and proposed it in such haste.

This is the opportunity to talk about the bill’s title and commencement date. The title is the Employment Relations Amendment Bill. I am sure that sounds like quite a benign title to the many people who are listening to this debate—

Hon DARREN HUGHES (Labour) Link to this

When National Party members went out campaigning during the election and were focusing on the things that really matter, I wonder whether any of them said that the things that do not matter are jobs for ordinary people. The thing that matters most to every family in New Zealand is the chance to have a job to earn wages so they can pay the family bills. Those are the things that really matter. The National Party MPs sitting over there spend more time giggling about light bulbs than saying what they want to do before Christmas to working families in New Zealand. Politics is not just a big joke. I see one of the new National members over there in the back row—Amy Adams, who gave her maiden speech earlier in the week. She is already giggling and laughing about how fun politics is, as she sits there, using her votes to rip away rights from working people in New Zealand. She is proud of it, but this was supposedly one of the things that really matters. We say that these things matter hugely to New Zealanders and we are going to fight all the way to make sure that we get answers out of this Minister.

It is a disgrace that this Minister, Kate Wilkinson, was so excited to accept a ministerial warrant but now will not get up in the Chamber and answer simple, reasonable, and rational questions from the Opposition, when we represent many hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders who voted for us to make sure that we hold this Government to account—and we will, because this is so important. She will not answer us. We have been in the Committee stage for around 5 hours. We are at the beginning of scrutinising this bill, which has not been to a select committee. We were told that it was not going to be part of the Government’s first 100 days, but we now find it on the floor of the Chamber. I ask members if they know how many times the Minister has deigned to get up on her hind legs and address the country about this bill in that time? The answer is three miserable times. There are Opposition members of Parliament who have spoken more times on this bill in this Committee stage than its Minister has. She is letting this country down, and she is not earning her money.

I want to ask the Minister some questions to join the questions of all my colleagues. I ask her whether she believes that anyone will suffer as a result of this bill. Does the Minister believe that any worker will suffer as a result of this bill? She has nothing to say on that. Will the Minister even concede that this bill might have some negative consequences? There is silence from her on that, as well. There is nothing. She is not prepared to answer a single thing. There is not a whisper, a murmur, a knock at the door, a text message, an email, or even a fax from this woman; she will not tell us what she believes about this bill. We know that the Government is divided on this bill—it is deeply divided. That is why Mrs Tolley is being hidden away.

MOANA MACKEY (Labour) Link to this

I am happy to take a call on clauses 1 and 2. We Labour members find ourselves in an extraordinary position: none of the many questions we put to the Minister in the chair last night—Kate Wilkinson—in the debate on Parts 1 and 2 have been answered. Those questions might have been answered had the Government allowed this bill to go to a select committee. If it had allowed the Opposition, the media, and the people of New Zealand to have their say on this bill, then maybe we would not be demanding so many answers from the Minister of Labour, who is ramming this bill through the House under urgency.

She is ramming it through before Christmas, although National said that it would not be put through before Christmas. This bill does not come into force until 1 April next year. There is no need for this rush. Rather than the Minister sitting there as though she has been struck deaf and mute all of a sudden, she should get to her feet and answer some of our questions. It was her decision to ram it through, and now she sits there as though somehow she has no obligation to the people of New Zealand, despite drawing a quarter of a million dollars in salary from them. I think it is an absolute disgrace that the first acts of this new Government are to raise taxes for low-income families, destroy their retirement income earnings, and take away their rights at work in their first 90 days of employment. The Minister does not feel that that is important enough for her to get to her feet and answer some simple questions.

I ask the Minister how she is going to police this legislation. How is she going to know the reason why someone was fired, when employers do not have to give the worker they have just fired a reason? The Minister said she has put human rights protection in this bill. As my colleague Annette King raised, how is she going to know that an employer who says “You look like you are not enjoying the job, so off you go.” does not have a far nefarious reason at the back of his or her mind for letting that person go? What if an employee turned up to the staff Christmas party with a partner, and the partner turned out to be of the same sex as the employee? The employer suddenly realises that the person he or she has hired is gay, and does not like that, so the employee is told “I’m sorry but you don’t fit in here. You don’t seem to be enjoying the work you are doing.” I seriously want the Minister to get to her feet and explain to the workers and the people of New Zealand how this bill will be policed. She has just opened a huge door to discrimination against many different groups in this country. She got up on her feet and talked about—

CHRIS TREMAIN (Junior Whip—National) Link to this

I move, That the question be now put.

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) Link to this

To quote a distinguished member of this House, it is an absolute privilege to be part of this parliamentary process, and a huge responsibility. It is just unfortunate that it is a bit more of a responsibility than usual, because we do not have a select committee process for the Employment Relations Amendment Bill. Like my colleagues, I ask myself what is so urgent about this bill that we have set aside the normal constitutional processes that colleagues ostensibly hold dear. We could call this bill the “Goodbye to Diversity Bill”. It rather sticks in my craw that Mr Bakshi, the poster boy for the Sikh community’s new-found love affair with the National Party, is going to be voting for it. What if someone with a turban does not meet the cultural predilections of their employer? It will be: “Goodbye! Hasta la vista! You’re gone!”, and no questions asked.

At the moment in the existing law there are grounds for termination of employment, provided that they are fair and subject to due process. It is not like one cannot fire someone. It is not like there are no protections for employers. This bill makes it perfectly all right for a sexual predator to dismiss a young female employee who decides she does not want his advances. So will we call this the “Protection for Predators Bill”? This bill is insane. It is unethical and it is immoral, and if this is part of the new Government’s arsenal, then I would not want to look too closely at the rest of it.

It is a matter of deep regret that this “Goodbye to Diversity Bill”—

SU’A WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere) Link to this

Thank you, Mr Chair, for the opportunity to take this call, and I congratulate you on your elevation to the new office that you now hold. The title of the bill is the Employment Relations Amendment Bill, and I say that title is very deceptive. The communities that are listening to this debate will be wondering what the big deal is, and thinking this is simply just a minor adjustment to the Employment Relations Act. But the big deal is that this bill removes a basic and fundamental right that workers currently have. The sad thing is that 2 days ago we celebrated the 60th anniversary of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and here we are, under a National-ACT-Māori Government, sending a message to the rest of the world that New Zealand no longer respects workers’ rights. That is the kind of message we are sending with this particular bill.

NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central) Link to this

I move, That the question be now put.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Labour) Link to this

We are sitting under urgency to consider the Employment Relations Amendment Bill that comes into force on 1 April, and I ask why. It is because this is part of the 100 days of action. The 100 days of action comes to an end on 25 February, and the House meets on 10 February for 2 weeks, so, basically, anything that needs to be done to legislation in the 100 days of action needs to be done this week or next week.

Let us refer to the Speech from the Throne, which stated that the Government is “going for growth”—a slogan recycled from Ruth Richardson. What is the secret of growth? What is the National Party’s answer in this 100 days of action? It is a $10-a-week tax cut for some people, the ability for employers to deny employees the right to a personal grievance claim if they are dismissed within 90 days of employment, and for teachers it is having to tell parents whether little Jimmy is in the second or fourth stanine in reading. Most of the members opposite will not even know what a stanine is, so we will try to enlighten them about that later on today or tomorrow.

This adds up to “going for growth.” This is the growth strategy of the National Party. Temporary and part-time employees could be taken on after coming out of prison. I do not know how they will get out of prison under National Party policy, because they have been told they will be staying in for ever. Eventually they are finally let out of prison, at 73 years old, and “rock up”, as Mr Key would say, to their local baker and say: “Can I do some dough for you?”. The employer will take them on for 90 days, and then will tell them: “Sorry, we don’t actually like the bread you made and we don’t feel you are happy here, and, anyway, you only get crumbs if you are a member of the Labour Party, so you are going to leave the job.” And this is going to turbocharge the New Zealand economy—[Interruption] Turbocharge, I say to Mr Bakshi.

No reason for dismissal has to be given. All this bill does is take away the right to a personal grievance claim. It does not create a provision for a probationary period—that is already in the law. It actually makes the law more rigid. It confines the probationary period to 90 days. That is what the bill does.

I take the case that my colleague Mr Cosgrove put forward of the person working in a sawmill who does not like the safety procedures. We now have a whole new slogan from National—it is now “a hand off, not a hand up.” It used to be “a hand up, not a hand out.” Well, if employees are not prepared to have their hand off, they cannot keep their job. An employer will say to an employee: “You are clearly not happy here. You do not like the idea of having a bleeding stump—you had better go somewhere else, where you are not at risk of that happening to you.” That is the National Party approach to this area, and it is going to turbocharge the New Zealand economy. People know that their kid who is 6 years of age is in stanine 2. Is that going to make something turbocharge the economy? Maybe, in 25 years’ time. People know they can have their jobs taken away from them in 90 days. That is not going to happen so much in highly skilled jobs, where people have bargaining power. It is going to happen in the unskilled jobs. And this will turbocharge the economy? I ask what else will turbocharge it. Well, people might get a $10-a-week tax cut next year, and that is going to turbocharge the New Zealand economy.

After 9 years in Opposition, this is all that the intellectual giants of the National Party have managed to think up between them as an economic strategy. It is no wonder that Gerry Brownlee has been the secret master behind National Party planning, strategy, and tactics both in the House and in terms of policy over that period of time. Meanwhile, over in the cathedral, Mrs Tolley is still in sanctuary, still not wanting to come out and admit the fact that she got it wrong, that teachers will be covered by these changes, and that small rural schools will have trouble retaining teachers. Teachers will not want to be put at risk of being sent down the road again because, oh my God, here they are in the back country in Hawarden or somewhere like that in Canterbury, and their employer has found out that they voted Labour in the 1984 election, and that is not something teachers should be allowed to do. After all, we all know what happened when the local teacher was the one Labour Party voter in the area, and the witch-hunt that went on to find out who that Labour Party voter was within that area. Now that employer will be able to tell that teacher: “Sorry about that. Down the road. Off you go. That’s the finish of your job. We will turbocharge the economy by bringing somebody else in.”

Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) Link to this

I seek leave to table a copy of a DVD showing Anne Tolley promising that teachers would be excluded from this legislation.

DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) Link to this

I move, That the question be now put.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Labour) Link to this

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I am sorry to have to intervene, but can I just be clear that the National Party is aware of what this amendment is—to bring the implementation date forward to 1 March—and that it is voting for it. The reason I raise this, of course, is that the vote result is not declared at this point and it is possible for a party to correct its vote. The National Party at no stage has indicated that it is supporting an amendment.