Holidays Amendment Bill

I move, That the Holidays Amendment Bill be now read a first time. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the Holidays Amendment Bill be referred to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, that the committee report the bill by 4 October 2004, and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting, except during oral questions and during an evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, despite Standing Orders 191 and 194(1)(b) and (c).

The Holidays Amendment Bill sets out a number of proposed amendments to the Holidays Act. The policy behind the 2003 Act was to ensure that employees who had penal rates stripped away during the 1990s would be guaranteed an additional payment for working on a public holiday. Most New Zealanders think that is fair. The Government also wanted to introduce 4-weeks’ annual leave from April 2007 to bring us into line with our key trading partners, notably Australia. Australia, of course, has had 4 weeks’ annual leave for about 30 years.

The Holidays Amendment Bill is, in part, a response to a review of the operation of the Holidays Act by a working-group that I convened in July 2004. The working-group was made up of representatives of public and private sector employer groups and unions, and was asked to consider whether the implementation of the 2003 Act had caused any unintended consequences. The group was also asked to make suggestions on how any such unintended consequences might be addressed. I commend the working-group for its work and for the constructive approach taken by all the participants, despite their varied interests. I also acknowledge the efforts of employers and unions who made submissions to the working-group.

Following the working-group’s report, it was clear that some parts of the Act were producing unintended consequences, and that those needed to be addressed. It is important that the interaction between the minimum entitlements in the Act and the provisions in employment agreements do not produce double-dipping. We need to avoid situations whereby the Act’s minimum entitlements are applied on top of entitlements that are already better than those in the Act. Accordingly, when an employee works on a public holiday, the bill provides for the employee to be paid the greater of the employee’s relevant daily pay, less any penal rates for working on the particular day, plus half that amount again, or the employee’s relevant daily pay. This formula will ensure that employees are fairly remunerated, with a minimum entitlement of time and a half, while preventing a windfall for employees who already enjoy a superior entitlement under their employment agreement. For example, if an employee who is entitled to double time for working on a Sunday works on a public holiday that falls on a Sunday, then he or she should not receive both the time and a half provided for by the Act and the double time provided for by the employment agreement. The proposed amendment will prevent any such double-dipping.

The bill also addresses situations where an employer has, in the past, incorporated public holiday penal rates into an employee’s regular or composite pay rate. The Act currently provides for a transitional period whereby that can continue until 1 April 2005. In practice, that period has proven to be insufficient to give the parties to a collective agreement time to decide on how to separate the public holiday penal rate out from the regular or composite pay rate during normal collective bargaining. The reason is that a collective agreement may well have a 3-year term and not be up for negotiation until 2006 or early 2007. The bill will extend the transitional period to enable the parties to deal with the matter during normal negotiations.

The bill also clarifies the position for employees who are sick or bereaved on a public holiday. The bill provides that the day will be treated as an unworked public holiday rather than as sick or bereavement leave, and the employee will not be entitled to payment of time and a half or to a paid day in lieu. That is an important clarification for both employers and employees.

The bill will enable employers to better manage the taking of sick leave. This proposed amendment has arisen out of employers’ reports of an increase in the incidence of sick leave, particularly on weekends and other days when penal rates apply. At present, an employer may seek proof of sickness or injury if an employee has been sick or injured for 3 consecutive calendar days. The bill will entitle the employer to seek proof of sickness within the 3-day period, when the employer has reasonable grounds to suspect that the sick leave is not genuine. The employer will bear the cost of the medical certificate or other proof of sickness.

To conclude, the bill retains the integrity of the 2003 Holidays Act and its emphasis on ensuring basic holiday, sick, and bereavement entitlements for employees. At the same time, the bill makes some changes to clarify several unintended consequences and to balance better some aspects of the Act. I commend the bill to the House.

This bill represents a lost opportunity. How many chances do members think the Labour-Progressive coalition Government gets to fix the deep flaws in the Holidays Act? I tell the House that it will have one chance, and it will be this one. A comprehensive review of the Act was required. This bill fails that test. It provides for only minimal changes, and in some respects it actually makes the situation more difficult. Frankly, that is not good enough, and it is the reason National will vote against the bill.

The Government’s efforts are a failure. Proof of that comes from one of the Government’s own companies—one of the largest that it owns directly—Air New Zealand. Air New Zealand, in its 2004 annual report, states that the 2003 Holidays Act has cost it $17 million, with no increase in productivity. More recently, it has envisaged that the Holidays Act could add as much as 5 percent to its wage bill. None of that even takes into account the proposed 4 weeks’ annual leave. That is the cumulative effect of the changes brought about by this Government in the Holidays Act. I ask members to think about it. One of New Zealand’s largest companies thinks this issue is so important that it has to mention it in its annual report. It knows that, at the very least, it is likely to get a shake of the head from a Minister, but it feels it has to bring to the attention of the public how seriously flawed the Holidays Act is.

The problem is that the Holidays Act represents a past era, but I guess that is to be expected from a Government that is locked into the past. It is the sort of thing one would have expected to occur in the era when New Zealand closed down for the weekends and had compulsory unionism and compulsory arbitration—an era when everything was compulsory. The modern business world has moved on, but in some areas Labour, whenever it sees the opportunity, tries to slip in those old-fashioned approaches. It is doing so with the Employment Relations Law Reform Bill, as well. That is the kind of approach Labour has. We know that this bill is a pay-off to its union friends. All the entertainment businesses, travel and airline industries, rest homes, and hospitality industries work on a 24/7 cycle, and they negotiate agreements with their employees to take that into account. The Minister knows the reality of that, because he gets submissions on it on a regular basis.

All the problems the Holidays Act would bring were clearly brought to the attention of the Government last year, when it brought the legislation in. This bill attempts to deal with some of those problems, and some of those attempts represent a completely botched jobs. This legislation is, in essence, a backwards step. In the modern era, when businesses operate 24/7, it is inherent that people work on public holidays and take other days off. That is negotiated and reflected in the agreements. The second speaker for National, the Hon Maurice Williamson, knows the direct reality of that, because he worked in precisely one of those kinds of businesses. He knows the sorts of the agreements that were negotiated with his employer, whereby both parties received satisfaction.

It is worth recalling what the case was when the Government’s reforms were brought about. All that the Government said it would do was that it would modernise the Act—nothing more than that; just modernise the Act and bring it up to date. The huge changes that occurred in the Holidays Act in 2003 were not expected, and I note that the Government has said it is picking up the unintended consequences. I ask the Government about the intended consequences: why does it not fix up those, as well? Then Air New Zealand would not be saying that as much as 5 percent could be added to its wage bill. That would be a direct loss of profitability, a direct loss of competitive advantage, and the sort of thing that holds that company back from achieving its full potential. Members know that legislation is in trouble when companies like Air New Zealand make those kinds of submissions.

It is extraordinary, is it not, that this legislation alone could cause a potential 5 percent increase in costs before even taking into account the extra 1 weeks’ annual leave. I challenge Government members to do the mathematics. To have 4 weeks’ leave—one week extra—would add 2 percent to businesses’ wage bills. The legislation and all the provisions around sickness, public holidays, and the like could cost as much as 5 percent, and we know that when that happens, they have got it wrong.

Even with this bill there are serious problems. For instance, the whole issue is based on a concept known as “relevant daily pay”. In 24/7 - type businesses, that pay is calculated on the basis of including all relevant allowances: holiday pay, sickness allowances, and the like. They are averaged over the course of the entire year. So time and a half is then built on top of that. That is fundamentally wrong, because the agreement itself already takes that into account. The Minister says he is fixing it up, but, as I read the relevant clause, he is not fixing it, at all. What he envisages is the “relevant daily pay”, plus time and a half. He is saying that workers should not get a further time-and-a-half payment on top on that. The submissions will make it clear how erroneous that is.

More serious are the provisions relating to sickness leave. The Government has painted this bill as being some kind of great success. Employers can now ask for a sickness certificate to be provided after an employee has been absent for 1 day. I ask members to think of the thresholds. Firstly, one has to have reasonable cause to actually request a certificate. That is a pretty high burden. It is the sort of thing one knows straight away—that as soon as one uses the word “reasonable” it will end up in a court. The court will interpret it, and it will probably interpret it adversely. Second, the employer is required to pay for the certificate. I ask members to consider the likely cost. It will be something like $50 or $60, at least. That in itself is a huge deterrent, so really the Government knows that it is giving something in a mirage only. It is taking the reality away. It knows that employers will not be able to ask for the certificate. The same old rorts that already take place will continue to take place, and that is likely to affect smaller employers in particular.

I want to conclude on this point. The Government has said it will pass this bill by Labour weekend. It is doing that, of course, to stop the select committee process and to narrow the focus of submissions. I would like to ask the Minister and the chair of the select committee whether they will guarantee that there will be an open submissions process so that every person who is affected can make a submission to point out the deep flaws in this bill. This bill does not fix up the fundamental flaws in the Holidays Act. It does not deal with the intended and adverse consequences. Because of that fact, National will be voting against this bill. It is bad for industrial relations.

That was an interesting speech from the man who was demoted to the position of spokesperson on industrial relations and is obviously deeply disappointed about that—so disappointed, in fact, that he has not bothered to read the bill or the Act or to understand anything about industrial relations. He does not even know that for 9 long years under the National Government workers actually got a day in lieu when they worked on a public holiday. I did not notice the National Government passing a law against that, even though it passed a law against just about everything else that workers were entitled to. But we can live in the hope that one day Dr Wayne Mapp, who has a law degree—I think he was even a professor of law at the “Weet-Bix University”, where he got his degree—might understand a little bit about industrial law.

Dr Wayne Mapp is saying that the National Party is against this: a worker getting penal rates for public holidays on top of existing penal rates. He is saying that by removing that we are taking a backward step. Employers should pay it, presumably, and they should pay it on Labour Day, because he is opposed to the law being passed quickly. I would like that member to meet with the employers out there who have been in sensible discussion with the Minister of Labour and his officials when the question of whether this was intended was asked. No, the select committee did not intend that, even though we will get one lawyer saying it means one thing and another saying it means another. I have my own personal view on what the current law actually means. We are going to do a quick and proper job in the select committee to fix it up, to remove doubt—and the National Party is against that.

National members are saying to employers up and down the country that on Labour Day this year, if their employees get a penal rate for working on that day, that rate should have time and a half on top of it, and the National Party will vote against this bill to try to force employers into paying even more. Well, the Government will be interested to hear the logic behind that one when the matter comes before the select committee. But, let us be fair. Dr Wayne Mapp is brand new in his job. Probably, by the time the bill passes—before Labour Day—he will be in another job where he might have some little understanding. Of course, Simon Power has already said in the paper that he really wanted that job.

💬 Hon Paul Swain: Really?

Yes. His big interest is in fixing up industrial relations, but he was given the whip’s job instead. Wayne Mapp has the job of industrial relations spokesperson, but it is obvious he is not interested in it because there are no guns or excitement in it, which is what he got when he was defence spokesperson.

This is the other thing the National Party is against: there will be no public holiday rates if an employee does not work on that day. So the National Party is saying it will oppose a law that at the moment is grey and there is confusion over—a law that states that if people do not work on a public holiday, they should still get the time and a half. Dr Wayne Mapp, the new wonder boy of the National Party in industrial relations, does not agree with us clarifying the law, and doing it quickly. He also says that employers should not have the right to request a medical certificate if there is reasonable cause. Let us remember that under the law workers get a whole 5 days’ sick leave per annum, which means there are not a lot of days to play around with and abuse. Once a person has used 3 of those days, that leaves only 2. I point out for the benefit of Dr Wayne Mapp that three plus two equals five. We want to make sure that if there is any evidence of abuse, that situation is able to be dealt with by employers. The vast majority of employers and employees actually administer and use their sick leave provisions properly. The provision is just a small way of resolving that.

Of course, the other thing that the National Party is opposed to is the time limit for solving issues related to composite pay rates being extended to April 2007. What is that about? It is where people rolled penal rates into their contracts and got an overall payment. Some did that in 1991 and 1992 and are having difficulty accessing the paperwork to show that it was done. They have come along to the Minister, who has listened—as he does—and said that that is fair enough; that the Government will extend the time in the bill so that those people will have a bit more time to go through the paperwork and finally resolve the question of whether time and a half is being paid. The National Party is opposed to that.

The National Party is opposed to sensible Government and to sensible laws that can be understood by employers and workers. We are actually for that. That is what this bill is about, and that is why we will be putting it through the House and the select committee with due process and making sure that there is no unnecessary confusion when Labour Day comes around.

I find myself in much agreement with the honourable member who has just resumed his seat. I cannot work out Wayne Mapp—

💬 Hon Annette King: Who can?

Who can? He is a complete mystery. The Holidays Bill of 2003 was a stuff-up. Let us be honest about it. It was a stuff-up. New Zealand First supported it, and we will not walk away from that fact, because we support the principle of low-paid people getting 4 weeks’ holiday a year. We support that quite firmly, and that is incorporated in the Holidays Act 2003, which, I think, comes into force in 2007. We thought it could come in a little bit earlier, but we support that concept. We also support the concept of low-paid people in particular getting time and a half for working on a statutory holiday.

New Zealand First supports this country coming into the modern world. That is what has happened in Australia, and, to put it simply, if it is good enough for the Australians, it is good enough for us. But there are so many anomalies in the Holidays Act, and we made reference to that in, I think, the third reading debate of the 2003 bill. We said the legislation would come back before this House in short order, and it has. It is absolutely ridiculous and absolutely outrageous that somebody can go sick and get time and a half on a statutory holiday, and that is what is currently happening in this country. I say to National Party members that this is the opportunity to fix that up, not to state that they are going to oppose it. There are also some concerns about the definition of the ordinary weekly pay and the relevant daily pay, which needs to be addressed. It amounts to—

💬 Dr Wayne Mapp: This bill won’t rectify that.

I will address what Mr Mapp is saying. The current situation amounts to double-dipping. Wayne Mapp says that it is not in this bill and it will not rectify it. He may or may not be correct. I think the bill goes some way towards it, but I believe that at the select committee we will get down to the detail of it and be able to rectify it. It is absolutely outrageous that people should get penal rates, penalty rates—call it what one likes—at time and a half on top of their daily holiday entitlement. I am told, by some very senior business people in this country, that some of the wealthy, senior executives in New Zealand are currently capitalising on this sort of thing. This bill really was not meant for them, so New Zealand First welcomes the opportunity to rectify that position.

We also have concerns—and we registered this at the time, certainly in select committee—about sick leave without a medical certificate. We think that is wrong, and we welcome readdressing the issue that employers have an entitlement to a doctor’s note if someone goes off sick. Wayne Mapp says: “Oh, the employer has to pay for it.” As the bill is written, that is correct, but come the select committee that might well change. A number of things do change at select committee. But we welcome the opportunity of opening up and exploring the situation, and trying to get it right.

💬 Dr Wayne Mapp: This bill won’t help it.

Mr Mapp can sling the insults, but I am telling him that he will live with the consequences.

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: Look who opened up with the insults about Wayne Mapp. So don’t you start on about insults.

I refrain from being personal as much as I can.

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: You insulted him in your first two sentences.

I refrained from being personal. I am saying to Mr Mapp, and I will say to Mr Williamson, that if they fail to support this bill, they are leaving employers in this country in a major quandary, and if that is a personal insult then I am sorry. That is a fact. If they do not support this bill, they are withholding the opportunity for employers—

💬 Dr Wayne Mapp: We want a comprehensive review. A comprehensive review is what is required.

Mr Mapp can say that he wants a comprehensive review, but he is not going to get that by Labour Day in October. He knows that, I know that. We believe that this issue should have sufficient priority for it to be addressed as meaningfully as we can, at the select committee now.

A concern that I have—and this is shared by at least some of my New Zealand First colleagues, although we have not debated it in full so I do not want to give the impression that it is a New Zealand First commitment—is that the composite wage structure should continue to exist. I believe it is a reasonable way of paying employees. I know many employers prefer that. They calculate the average amount of statutory holidays at an individual workplace etc., and they come out with a composite wage rate. I believe, and I will certainly push for this at select committee, that that regime should continue. I know the Minister has extended it out to 2007—

💬 Hon Paul Swain: Just to clarify it, that is all.

To clarify it. But I think it should be allowed to exist long term, as long as the employers and the employees can stipulate how it is calculated.

💬 Hon Paul Swain: It will be.

It will be?

💬 Hon Paul Swain: Oh, yes.

I am very pleased to hear that. I do not think that I can add a great deal to this, but I, and New Zealand First, welcome the opportunity to send this bill back to select committee. Let us tidy it up. The Holidays Act was well meaning, but let us tidy it up to get it neat and tidy before the October holiday. New Zealand First supports this bill going to select committee.

The Green Party is, with some reluctance, supporting the Holidays Amendment Bill being sent to the select committee, but we are certainly not promising the Government our vote for this bill after that. The only reason we are voting for this bill at all is that we realise there have been a couple of genuinely unintended consequences arising from the Holidays Act so recently passed by this House.

We agree with Labour that if an employment agreement already expressly makes provision for a worker to have a penal rate of time and a half or more for working on a public holiday or a weekend, for example, the employee should not then be entitled to another penal rate of a further time and a half or more on top of that. As someone who sat on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee for its consideration of the original bill, I still do not quite understand how that latter interpretation has been made. But given that there is advice that that is so, the Green Party does accept there is a need to clear up the matter for the sake of all concerned—both employers and workers. We are also relaxed about accepting that there should be a longer period of exemption from the time and a half requirement for existing collective agreements. That will allow more time for employers and unions to come to an agreement on amending collective contracts, in order to separate out the public holiday penal rate. The Green Party also accepts the clarification the bill provides that someone who is sick or bereaved on a public holiday will have that leave treated as an unworked public holiday, rather than as sick or bereavement leave.

However, when it comes to the question of making amendments in the area of proof of sickness or injury, we are completely in disagreement with what Labour is doing in this bill. The Green Party is extremely apprehensive that what is before us today is, in fact, the thin end of the wedge, in terms of retreating from one of the original intentions of the Act. This bill, if passed as it stands, appears to give employers the right to require a sickness certificate from an employee even if a worker has had only 1 day or part of a day off for illness or injury. One of the main reasons the Green Party was so enthusiastic about the Act was that finally we had a law that meant employers did not have an automatic right to require proof of sickness or injury until a staff member had been absent from work for 3 or more consecutive calendar days.

Now the Government is proposing that such proof can be demanded at any time, if the employer has what is called reasonable grounds to suspect that the sick leave being taken is not genuine, if the employer informs the employee right away of that suspicion, and if the employer agrees to meet the employee’s costs of obtaining such proof. That is a really major backtrack on the Act, and it flies in the face of the many submissions we received from workers and unions, supporting the intentions of the holidays legislation. This new amendment plays right into the hands of the many business submitters who evidently distrust their staff to such an extent that they believe that employers should have the right to demand proof of sickness or injury as soon as employees take any time off work, at all. The Green Party totally opposes this attempt by employers and the Government to return New Zealand to a system that requires employees to get a doctor’s certificate at the employer’s behest, even if the worker is taking just 1 day or even less than 1 day off.

While Labour has moderated its original proposal—thank goodness—by stating that seeing a medical professional must be at the employer’s expense, there is still nothing here in this bill to state whether the employee has the choice of going to his or her own doctor, or whether the employee will be required to attend a company general practitioner. In the light of what happens with regard to many accident compensation claimants, who are required to be assessed by health professionals who are contracted to the Accident Compensation Corporation, I can see similar problems arising under this legislation if employees are forced to get their proof of injury or sickness from a company doctor. I am afraid that there are times and situations in which doctors who are under contract to the stakeholder with the most power tend, unfortunately, to come down with decisions that favour that stakeholder, despite the general requirements of medical ethics.

Further to that, if the Government insists on going ahead with this amendment at all, the bill will need to clarify whether this provision is to be a reimbursement system. If there is to be a reimbursement system there will be real problems, as often people do not have the cash on hand, or credit, that will allow them to pay high doctors’ fees upfront. For people on low and uncertain wages, as so many New Zealand workers are, the cost of seeing a doctor can be prohibitive, and even if they can get back from their employer later the $50 to $70 that they pay the doctor, it is money they can ill afford to do without in the meantime. Often those people simply will not have the money at all if they fall sick or are injured at the wrong end of the week. Before the Government responds loudly to that by talking about the benefits the primary health organisations have brought, in terms of lowering the cost of going to the doctor, I note that in all too many cases it appears the cost has actually risen, especially for A3 patients, in which category many paid workers fit, even those on pretty low incomes.

On top of all that, it would appear that the requirement to provide a doctor’s certificate at the employer’s whim may also affect people who take domestic leave—that is, staff who take time off because a child or other dependant is sick or injured. Will the employer pay for the child’s visit to the doctor? Who has the pleasure of assessing how genuine a child’s sickness is, and then penalising or not penalising an employee because of that judgment? Overall, what are the consequences for an employee if adequate proof of sickness or injury on the part of his or her family member is not supplied? Do those people lose a day’s pay? Are they subject to other forms of discipline?

At the heart of all this also lies the question of what kind of proof, if any, employers will have to use to meet the requirement that they must have reasonable grounds to suspect that the sick leave being taken is not genuine. Given that this new obligation on workers will apply to only the first 5 days of sick leave in each year, what grounds will employers have within that time frame of 5 days for thinking that workers may be abusing the sick-leave provisions? How low or high will the bar for reasonable suspicion be set? This provision is bad enough for workers who have a union to help them to negotiate the reality of how it may be applied, but for the 80 percent of the workforce that is not in unions the situation will be a nightmare. When exactly do employers have to ask for proof? The bill as drafted refers to leave being taken, thereby implying that employers must ask for proof on that day, and not after the sick-leave period is completed. No matter how sick or hurt workers are, will employers have the right to force them out of bed during the day to go forth and seek a medical certificate? Will employers be happy to foot the cost of the staff member receiving a home visit from the doctor? I doubt it.

That takes us back to many arguments that were already canvassed during the early select committee process on the previous bill, which I naively thought had been resolved. For example, many people do not go to the doctor on the first day of their illness, because they are not sure of the severity of what is wrong with them. Most people have a sensible tendency of waiting to see whether they get better or worse before making a doctor’s appointment, both because of the cost and because if people are not feeling well it is often better to stay in bed at home. They have a better chance of recovering if they do that. If it turns out that the illness is quite mild and the person is better the next day, then it is a waste of both money and time for him or her to visit the doctor, simply in order to satisfy the obligations stemming from an employer’s mistrust.

The Green Party believes that the amendment requiring proof of sickness or injury after 1 day or less than 1 day is a strange capitulation by Labour to the hyperbole of employer submitters on the previous bill, who spend a lot of time bemoaning the supposedly huge number of workers who take days off when they are not really sick. Given that the statutory entitlement to sick leave is only 5 days a year, there is a limit to the abuse that can be made of that provision, anyway. I had hoped that New Zealand employers would be a little more mature and trustful of their workers than seems to be the case. I call on the Government to reject this measure outright, and to go back to the original intention of the Act. It is all very well to put forward an amending bill to simply amend any unintended consequences of that Act, but to actually use that as a Trojan Horse to give in to unreasonable employer demands that negate one of the original intentions of the Act is a wholly different story. Unless Part 2 of the bill is radically changed or eliminated altogether, I can assure the Government that this will be the last occasion on which it can expect Green Party support for this particular bill.

I rise on behalf the ACT party to speak to the Holidays Amendment Bill, a bill that the ACT party will oppose. According to the explanatory note, this bill “implements Government policy by … correcting unintended consequences that have arisen or may arise in applying the Holidays Act …” that was enacted just last year. Apparently, it will ensure fairness between employers and employees is maintained when paying employees time and a half for public holidays and requesting proof of sickness or injury in relation to sick leave. I will also move that this bill be sent to the Commerce Committee, and not to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee.

I will now explain why we oppose the bill. Firstly, in relation to the statement by the Government, I say there should be a requirement as to the accuracy of explanatory notes. The explanatory note of this bill states that there were “unintended consequences”. Members can look at the Hansard of last year; they can go into the corridor and get a volume. If they look at volume 614, they will see that the date of the second reading of the Holidays Bill was 4 December. The Minister in charge of the bill, the Hon John Tamihere, said on behalf of the Minister of Labour that there were 4,000 submissions on the bill. Many, many submitters predicted all the consequences that have happened under that legislation. But it is not just that. Last year the ACT party went to the trouble—I do not know why we bother—of putting in a minority report on that bill. In that minority report our committee member Deborah Coddington predicted that those matters would happen. Those changes were not unintended consequences. The Transport and Industrial Relations Committee changed the Government’s proposals, in order to make the bill more radical.

Why did the committee do that? If members would like to know why I am suggesting changing the committee to which this bill should be sent so that it is relevant, it is because the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee is made up on the Government side purely of former trade union officials. Mr Gosche was a member of the hotel workers union, and Lianne Dalziel, I think, was also a member of the same union. Helen Duncan was an office holder of the teachers union, Lynne Pillay was a former trade union official of the Engineers Union, and from the Green Party we have a person who was an official of the unemployed workers union—whatever that could be. I do not know how she can claim to know about sickness and everything else, because she has never worked. The serious point I am making is that I have sat on that committee and I have watched those members, who have never employed anyone in their lives and not only have no sympathy for employers but are ideologically opposed to them. They put up those absurd amendments, even though—and members can see this in Hansard—the predicted consequences of those amendments were there.

Quite seriously, I say to this House that we should not send any industrial relations bill to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. That committee is ideological, and is not capable of looking at evidence in a dispassionate fashion. I suggest this bill be referred to the Commerce Committee because, although it is chaired by a former trade union official, Mr Mark Peck, I have more respect for his chances of listening to officials than I do in the case of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. Mr Mark Peck, the Hon Damien O’Connor, and Ross Robertson are far more likely to listen to submissions, rather than to take the ideological, blinkered approach of that committee. If members do not believe that, then they should look at the Employment Relations Amendment Bill when it comes back to the House—but I cannot anticipate an order of the day.

💬 Sue Bradford: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. About half a minute ago I believe the member made a personal reflection against me, by saying that I have never worked. That is simply not true.

That is not a point of order; it is a debating point.

💬 Sue Bradford: It is not a debating point. Do I need to seek leave to make a personal explanation? My understanding was that one had to raise a point of order on things like that, right away.

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: I thought that was a debating point, but the member can seek leave to make a personal explanation.

I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. You could have pointed out to the member that it is highly unparliamentary to interrupt a speech in order to make a personal explanation that is a debating point. She is inviting me to object to leave being given to her for that.

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member is right. Rather than interrupting a speech like that, the member should wait until the member has finished his speech if she wants to make an explanation.

No doubt the member worked very hard on behalf of the unemployed, but I still say that from her work history that member is not qualified to look at this matter, and is certainly not sympathetic to the interests of small business. The ACT party predicted these consequences on the debate of the Holidays Bill last year. If members read Deborah Coddington’s speech, they will find that all these matters were raised.

Again, on behalf of the ACT party I point out to the House that this bill is still very defective. One reason for that is it does not fix the problem of relevant daily pay. What is relevant daily pay? That was a new concept introduced by the select committee, and not by the Minister. That ideological select committee decided to introduce a new concept for working out holiday pay. Well, what is relevant daily pay? With effect from 1 April, it means we no longer calculate holiday pay as we have done for 50 years in this country, on the result of one’s ordinary pay—that is, the base rate of pay without such things as overtime, productivity incentives, attendance incentives, conditions, allowances, and other such payments. I put this to the House: why should someone who is not working because he or she is on holiday be entitled to a productivity incentive? Why should someone be entitled to an attendance bonus, when that person is not attending? That is how absurd the situation is. Members may ask whether it involves very much money. Yes, it does. As the National Party member pointed out, Air New Zealand has indicated that the effect of the Holidays Act, even before we get to the 4 weeks’ annual leave provision, is an additional $17 million on its payroll. The effect on small business has been absolutely devastating.

We in this party, who make no apology for representing the interests of small business, cannot support a Holidays Amendment Bill that is not prepared to look at the revolutionary concept that the relevant daily pay that should be used for working out the payment for one’s days off—of course it should be; it has been for 50 years—is one’s ordinary rate of pay. That is an extremely important point, and one of the reasons for that is this: it is actually quite easy to calculate holiday pay when one calculates it off one’s ordinary rate of pay. We all—employers and employees—know what our base rate of pay is. But once we decide to include all overtime worked, all penal time that may have been collected, and all unusual payments—for instance there are some people who still get dirt money, and the like—the paperwork now required to keep someone’s record, so his or her holiday pay can be worked out, is enormous.

Government members get up—and I heard the Minister for Small Business today—and boast that they will try to reduce red tape for small business. Well, I tell Mr Tamihere that if he wants to reduce red tape for small business, one simple way of doing that is to go back to a formula of using someone’s ordinary base rate to calculate the payment for holiday time. That would save an enormous amount of administration, and it is also just. It would also avoid the enormous arguments that are now happening in every firm around New Zealand. People are saying to their employer that the employer has forgotten about the fact that they received a special “rain” allowance in the last 12 months, or that the employer is forgetting about the fact that he or she was generous enough to give them a bonus because they managed to get some goods shipped by Easter. They argue that they are now entitled to be paid that bonus at Christmas, not because they have done anything then but because 12 months ago they did something.

The House can see the absurdity of that. The Commerce Committee, I believe, would see the absurdity of that. I assure the House that the trade union members that the Labour Government has put on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee have never had to pay a fellow New Zealander out of their own money. No one has ever had to worry about paying the wage bill each week. Not a single employer from the Government side of the House is on that committee; none of those people are on that committee. That committee is so ideological that even though the ACT party—and the National Party, to be fair to it—pointed out all the so-called unintended consequences that were raised in about half the 4,000 submissions that the committee heard on the Holidays Bill, it took no notice of them and put the bill through. That committee should not be given another chance to attempt to do that. I ask the committee to support my amendment to refer this bill to the Commerce Committee.

I wish to make a personal explanation in response to something Mr Prebble said during his speech. He said in one statement that I have never worked. I take offence at that statement as I have worked for all my adult life, both in paid and in unpaid work. If the member is referring to paid work, I say I worked for 12 consecutive years in paid employment prior to coming to Parliament, and I also consider that since being in Parliament I have been in paid employment.

I rise on behalf of United Future to support this bill going to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. Unlike the National Party, whose members are now trying to say that they are holding the umbrella for the business community, this amendment bill helps the business community; it does not hinder it. That is why we are in favour of this going to the select committee to be looked at. One or two things beyond what is in this amendment bill need to be looked at, and I will allude to those as I go along.

I cannot understand how the National Party would not want to help employers and businesses with this bill. Just for the record, United Future voted against the Holidays Bill when it was passed last year. The main reason for that is still hanging in our minds, and we will stick with that. We think that the provisions, such as time and a half on a public holiday, should be the result of negotiations between employers and employees, rather than by Government fiat. My colleague Paul Adams, I think, was arguing along that line. If there is such a thing as the much-vaunted good-faith bargaining, then we believe that it must occur in a context where both sides are relatively free, or are free, to trade, accepting some minimal levels of statutory protection in that. But today we are not so dogmatic that we fail to recognise that this bill, while maintaining time and a half for those who do work on public holidays, at least swings the pendulum back a little bit the other way towards the employers. For that we are in favour of seeing this bill go to the select committee.

The Act, as amended last year, theoretically allowed workers to claim time and a half, we know, on their normal pay, plus any penal rates that they already possessed for working on such days. Those penal rates, of course, are a product of good-faith negotiations between the employer and the employee that I mentioned before. There is a danger that this good faith would have been undermined by legislation that delivers workers a potential windfall. This bill, then, ensures that there is also a kind of maximum amount that must be paid to those working on a public holiday, and we are happy about that.

The bill also deals with another unintended consequence, as indicated in it, of last year’s legislation—that is, the problem of people taking sick leave on a public holiday and then claiming time and a half. So United Future has sensed that this leaves the potential for less scrupulous employees to call in sick on a public holiday so that they can have a long weekend and get paid time and a half on top.

It is perverse that the very legislation designed to compensate employees who do work on a public holiday could actually give them a better reason for not working. Under this bill, as we have it before us, an employee who is sick on a public holiday will have that day treated as an unworked public holiday and not sick leave.

We in United Future have a lingering concern—and others have alluded to this—that the new bill focuses on a thing called relevant daily pay, which includes extras such as incentives, overtime, and other payments. Relevant daily pay, as I see it here, means that an employer cannot pay an employee more for working than for not working, thereby creating a financial incentive for employees to throw a sickie on days when their pay is highest. I would like the select committee to look at that issue. It should definitely look into whether the replacement of ordinary pay with relevant pay, under the holidays legislation, can be continued, or even justified to be continued. United Future members on that committee will ensure that that issue will be focused on.

There is also the contentious issue of when the employer can ask for proof of illness if a worker calls in sick. The present 2003 Act initially sought to establish a minimum period of 5 days of sick leave before an employer could request a medical certificate, until the select committee later reduced that to 3 days. This legislation makes a further amendment that we believe is in the right direction, to allow employers to request that an employee produce proof of sickness or injury before 3 days are up. Contrary to one other speaker here, we think that that is a step in the right direction. When the select committee does look at this legislation I would like it to take a closer look at those clauses. I am concerned that if employers are forced into a situation where they have to inform the employee of their suspicions, then a culture of open mistrust in the workplace is inevitable.

I end with the comment that we think it is a sign of maturity that this Government has at least admitted it has stuffed up. At this stage United Future is getting used to helping to pull the Government out of a hole into which it has dug itself. We do not mind if it results in better outcomes for New Zealand. We are pleased to see that the new Minister is taking a much more realistic approach to those matters than his predecessor. We are ever hopeful that that realism will find its way into other Labour legislation such as introducing a probationary personal grievance - free period into employment relations law reform legislation, which I know the Minister’s colleague John Tamihere does support. On that note I make it known that we in United Future do support this legislation to a select committee for further investigation and improvement.

I rise in support of this legislation. We have been criticised for admitting an error, or an unintended consequence in the prior legislation, but this Government is a modest Government. It is not an arrogant Government. When things have gone wrong, it listens, and changes them. Something did go wrong with the holidays legislation. Employers were getting ramped up, having agreed to pay penal rates on holidays. Those penal rates were being doubled up on as a consequence of the Holidays Act. That was not fair. We are remedying that with this amendment bill. We are remedying it in time for Labour Day. That is important to employers in my electorate. I am pleased to support the legislation. I am also pleased to support the concept of relevant daily pay, rather than basic pay, otherwise the lowest-paid workers who are paid on the basis of piece rates do not get fair recompense in terms of public holidays. I will say no more, because I think that the legislation is simple and sensible, and I support it.

There can never be any legislation in this Parliament that shows the differences more between the left and the right members of this House than industrial legislation. This legislation has to be another one of those examples, and the Hon Richard Prebble was absolutely right when he referred to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. Because sitting across on the Government side would be the absolute straight-out mouthpiece of the trade unions in the form of all the Government members. Not one of them has ever put a dollar of his or her own money at risk. They sit there and go on and on in some way-back distant past sort of “capital versus labour struggle” type of rhetoric that one hears over and over again.

I want members of this House to just focus on the fact that the past is actually a foreign country. It used to be in New Zealand that businesses were closed on weekends, so that workers did not normally go to work at all. It used to be that workers worked Monday to Friday from 9 until 5, and that was it. That is not the case for just about anybody now. Weekend work, night work, overtime, and special rates apply to so many people and the varied circumstances that a number of people choose to work under.

A constituent of mine and his wife work at a retail outlet and they asked the boss whether they could work weekends and have 2 days off in the middle of the week so that they could head off to their beach place where nobody was around and they could have a lovely quiet time. They would still work normal pay rates on Saturdays and Sundays, because for them, without children, the weekend was a better time to work at their paid employment, and they could have their time off sometime in the middle of the week.

But oh no, what we have here is a typical example of the left-wing trade union movement of the Government saying that it knows what is best for workers—not the employers, because they are dreadful, evil people—and they will impose from the centre a regime. I might even be able to live with that to an extent if they could only get it right. But now we come to the process that they follow, and again the Hon Richard Prebble was quite clear. He said that could not be labelled unintended consequences, because unintended consequences are things one did not know would happen, until after the event. One did not realise that that could be the case; one did not know that that would be the impact of that.

But as the Hon Richard Prebble made very clear in his speech, not only was it brought up in Hansard at the time during the debate on the Holidays Bill—and Mark Peck should read Hansard, Volume 614, for 4 December, or at least get someone to read it to him; he should realise that those issues were raised in the Parliament then—it was raised in the minority report of ACT that quite clearly they would be the consequences if the Government boxed on. So this legislation is not some sort of “Holidays Amendment Act”, it is a “Botch-up Revisited Act”. That is what this legislation is, and the reason the National Party will oppose it is that it does not go anywhere near enough to fix the fundamental flaws of the Holidays Act. That is the reason. We think it is good that the Government is trying to fix up some of the botch-up, but a 50 percent botch-up of a 50 percent botch-up does not make it 100 percent correct. It makes it about a 200 percent mess still, and that is what this legislation does.

I shall take members through some examples in the legislation. First, it would be worthwhile revisiting how we came about this. When the Holidays Bill was introduced in February 2003 it talked only about ordinary pay. How come? Ordinary pay was fine back then when the first bill was introduced in February 2003.

💬 Dr Wayne Mapp: It was an understood concept.

Ordinary pay was an understood concept. Members on the other side of the House do not remember. When I was driving for Refrigerated Freight Lines and Wattie’s during my university days as a truck driver, we got wet money and cover allowance money if the freight on the back had to have a cover. We were paid an extra amount for the cover being on the freight, but if the freight was palletised or containerised, we did not get that allowance. We are now saying that a percentage of that should be added on for one’s holidays! It has nothing to do with one’s holidays. It has nothing to do with what one is compensated for, because those rates were negotiated as a direct payment to the workers for the things they did just that day, or depending on whether they got wet while they were unloading their trucks. There are heaps and heaps of what I think are some of the most despicable little clauses to compensate somebody. That is why holiday pay was always based on one’s ordinary-time rate, what one’s hourly rate was for working at the job. One was not at work while one was on holiday. One did not have to worry about wet money, a cover allowance, or anything else, because one was on holiday. They were things that were specific to one’s employment. Now we see the left-wing Government saying no, it will aggregate all the bits and pieces that people get for specific services along the way and bang them into one big thing called “relevant daily pay”—whatever that means—and then it will make the employer fork that out to people, no matter what.

The best examples I can give, for members’ information, are a couple that came out of Simpson Grierson’s submission. I think Simpson Grierson did a fantastic job of analysis. The submission states that the bill solves some of the more perverse consequences of the Holidays Act, but that unfortunately a number of other deficiencies have not been addressed; employees are still meant to be paid their relevant daily pay when they take a public holiday, a day in lieu, or a day of sick leave. I have covered all that. Let me take a couple of Simpson Grierson’s examples, because I think they are quite relevant: “Joe works a standard 8-hour day—a 40-hour week—plus a late night every Friday. He is paid double time for the Friday night, plus a meal allowance.” That sounds fine. “If Joe is sick on a Friday, his relevant daily pay will be his standard 8 hours, as well as his double time and his meal allowance.”

💬 Hon Richard Prebble: And his meal allowance?

And his meal allowance! So he is not there and is not working, but he has a meal allowance. That is the first of Simpson Grierson’s examples. I want to know whether the Minister thinks that is right, because I can see the “Holidays Amendment Bill (No 2)” coming in, the week after Labour weekend. We should put a slot aside. I reserve a slot for the Minister’s introduction of the next amendment bill to deal with the unintended consequences of the unintended consequences fix-up!

There is another example. Members should listen to it, because it is a classic: “Mary works every Saturday and is paid double time and a laundry allowance. If Anzac Day falls on a Saturday and she works, Mary will be paid the greater of time and a half on her flat rate and time and a half on her allowance, or her normal Saturday pay, being double time plus her allowance. Of course, Mary will also qualify for a day in lieu, which, if she takes it on a Saturday, will have to be paid at double time plus her allowance.” I have to read that again. I want the House to hear it, because it is just too good to be true: “Mary works every Saturday and is paid double time and a laundry allowance. If Anzac Day falls on a Saturday and she works, Mary will be paid the greater of time and a half on her flat rate and time and a half on her allowance, or her normal Saturday pay, being double time plus her allowance. Of course, Mary will also qualify for a day in lieu, which, if she takes it on a Saturday, will have to be paid at double time plus her allowance.”

💬 David Parker: He’s got it wrong.

Oh, the legal expert, Mr David Parker, that eminent professor of law, says Simpson Grierson, which has a team of people with more letters after their names than the Russian alphabet and who know employment law better than anybody in this country, has got it wrong. I ask Mr Parker why he did not tell Simpson Grierson’s lawyers that they got it wrong when they first came before the select committee and tried to stop the first bill, because if he had listened to them then, we would not be here making a fix-up to the botch-up that occurred. I say to Mr Parker that he should shut up and listen to some people who know about employment law and who say quite clearly that this fix-up does not do it. For that reason alone, the National Party will be voting totally against the bill. We say to the Minister that he should go away and do some work for a change.

💬 Dr Wayne Mapp: Do your homework!

He should do his homework and come back to the House with a bill that does address the problem. The National Party would then support him.

One of the things I will miss about the House is following that member’s speeches. He is always good copy. Let me tell him a little bit about laundry allowances. I think he was the Minister whose plane dropped 20,000 feet and he had to do something about some underwear. On that occasion he probably felt like having a laundry allowance. He was also the man who was going to save coastal shipping. He saved it—there is none left. I will miss him.

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: Your guys were going to repeal it as your first move.

Well, we have other things to do, like fixing the Holidays Act. This is good legislation. It does tidy up some unintended consequences. I want to congratulate the Minister on listening and getting it right. I say to the member who quoted eminent lawyers in his speech that one of the things about the legal profession is that sometimes one is on the prosecuting side and at other times one is on the defending side, and, by definition, one is wrong half the time. So we can leave it up to members of Parliament to get this legislation right.

There are two things I want to say. Can members on the Government side of the House tell me how long the Australians have had 4 weeks’ annual leave?

💬 Hon Paul Swain: Thirty years.

It has existed in Australia for 30 years. We have not had it in New Zealand, and National would take it away. That is OK. But it is not only that. National would take Christmas Day away, as well. It has never repealed Max Bradford’s policy that workers should not have their Christmas Day. So that is OK. Those characters on the front bench on the other side of the House are going to take them all away and let workers work all the time. I suppose they call that “flexibility”.

I think the select committee has a lot to work through in this legislation. I say to the member who moved the resolution to send it to the Commerce Committee that I noted one member wanted to save rail and one wanted to save coastal shipping, so I think we should send it to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and let it deal with it. It is a good bill and I recommend it to the House.

It is always great to hear a member admit that we are debating a muck-up that the Government made. That is what the member said. We are here to fix up a bill that the Government put into place in 2003—the Holidays Act.

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: Fix up the muck-up.

That is right—it has to fix up the muck-up it made. It is flip-flopping. Of course, this is an anti-business Government. Its members have never invested a dollar, and would not have a clue what it takes to run a business. Now they are coming up with some changes to legislation that parties on this side of the House argued against throughout the debate on it. We made the point then that it was anti-business and would not work—that it would increase compliance costs for businesses. Do members know when it came into effect?

💬 Dr Wayne Mapp: When?

It came into effect on 1 April 2004. What is 1 April? April Fool’s Day. That is when it came into effect.

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: It should have been May Day.

It could have been 1 May, but it came in on April Fool’s Day. Here the Government is attempting to make the changes that we identified then as being major constraints to businesses, and as being the major compliance costs.

We will not support this bill, because, as we said at the time and as we are saying now, the legislation needs a complete rewrite. It is absolutely nonsensical that we are just doing it piecemeal. The Government is coming through now with legislation to try to get itself out of a mess, in order to accommodate Labour Day, which is coming up very shortly.

The bill does absolutely nothing about looking at the other compliance cost regime—the bereavement leave provisions. How is it that one can have unlimited bereavement leave—3 days—for a close relative? It is open-ended. It is not just 3 days per year. It is actually open-ended—3 days for a close relative and, on top of that, 1 day for a close associate. One has to do the numbers on that, when one is trying to run a business—and we are a nation of small businesses. Given that 90 percent of businesses in New Zealand employ fewer than 5 people, we are a nation of small businesses.

In fact, there was a damning report done by the Ministry of Economic Development, which has responsibility for businesses in the small to medium sector. At the time, the ministry said that the profit income of small to medium enterprise businesses that employ from one to five employees is alarming in terms of the amount of money they are making. The report, by the Government’s own ministry, states that the average income in that sector is $31,000 or, looked at another way, less than the average wage. Those small businesses make up the hub of New Zealand, and of provincial New Zealand. The people running them are key people in the area that I represent. An income of $31,000 a year works out at only $17.22 per hour. If we take out non-productive time, it is $15.37.

We are opposed to these changes to the legislation because they do not rectify the position. If we look at the question of the extra costs that have been imposed by the Holidays Act, it is very clear that they are getting out of hand. Here are some statistics that I think the House should be aware of. It has come to our attention that the extra costs that have gone into the meat industry, for example, total $16 million to $32 million a year. The district health boards, which are strapped for money today, will face extra costs in the millions. In fact, it is estimated that the costs of the Waikato District Health Board will be $4.5 million. The Canterbury District Health Board’s costs will be in the region of up to $10 million. Those are bottom-line costs that organisations have to be able to account for, yet what does this bill try to remedy? It does absolutely nothing to make those organisations more efficient at providing services that are crucial to our communities.

What about the question of law and order? Crime has always been a very high priority for our communities. This is what the police force, in a memo that has been tabled, states: “Only staff who are required to work on public holidays should do so. Staff should not necessarily be required to stand by on public holidays as these will incur an alternative day off and potentially additional payments for the hours worked. The changes have the potential for significant impact on personnel and leave costs for the organisation if not carefully managed.” The cost to the police of the law changes would be between $4 million and $5 million. This memo says that, under these provisions, we cannot guarantee that we will have police coverage in the areas where we would expect to have it. The report states: “It has the potential to put a big dent in the budget of our cash-strapped Police services. For instance, it’s half of the extra money Labour is spending on fighting the P epidemic this year.” The Government should be explaining why our services like health, law and order, and the police will have to suffer because of the Holidays Act.

The Government has made the point that it is softening up the law, in that if an employee wants to take sick leave, he or she has to provide a doctor’s certificate after 1 day’s leave. That is fine, but who pays for it? It is not the employee who has to justify that he or she is sick; it is the employer who has to pay the doctor’s fee. So if an employee is sick on Friday, and the employer asks on Monday for a medical certificate to show that the person was genuinely sick, the employer is sent the $50 bill. At the end of the day, who in his or her right mind would accept that? Why should the employer have to pay for a medical certificate? If the employee is away sick, it is up to the employee to justify the fact that he or she has taken a day off. But the bill states that the employee will choose the doctor, and the employer will pay the fee. If I am paying the fee, I should be the one to choose where the person goes. But under this amendment, which is just a cop-out, the employer has to carry the can.

A lot has been said about the ordinary pay, the relevant daily pay. A provision says that employers will pay time and a half—and that will include all the allowances that go with that—and also provide a day off in lieu. The actual compliance costs associated with that will be horrendous. We heard Dr Wayne Mapp talk about Air New Zealand, which will face extra costs of $17 million. Over the whole year, this provision will add an extra 5 percent to the actual costs of running Air New Zealand. Who will pay? Those costs will have to be spread out because a company cannot carry that sort of burden. We will find that it will be reflected in the cost of tickets. We see already that some firms that operate on weekends, like restaurants and cafes, are putting a surcharge in place to cover the extra costs. The Restaurant Association said at the time we were debating the original legislation that about 30 percent of restaurants and cafes, which normally would have opened on Good Friday or Easter Monday, would stay closed, and that approximately 20 percent intended to stay open but to operate with fewer staff. Who misses out if a business opens with reduced staff? The employees. At the end of the day, a business can carry only so many costs.

This bill, which the Government says will tidy up and rectify some of these issues by Labour Day, will not work at all. This is a flip-flopping Government. We will be back, as Maurice Williamson said. We will be back to make future changes.

It is always fascinating to listen to National Party members talk about workers. The thing that came to me, as somebody who has run businesses over many years, is that they have this strange—[Interruption] I ran restaurants.

💬 Brian Connell: Have they gone out of business?

Of course they have. I am in Parliament. What I find fascinating is the walls that National members have in their little heads. They have this idea that all employers are just employers. What I find in my electorate, in my family, and in my community is that most employers have wives and husbands who are employees. They have children who have part-time jobs or full-time jobs. They are people who live in mixed communities. I am really interested that those members say that the cost of holidays will fall on employers; well, the cost of not having holidays falls on employees and employers. The cost of not having holidays falls on the families of employees and employers. Could those members opposite think for one moment about the fact that most New Zealanders have families? Spookily enough, many of us spend our holidays with our families, and if we do not, our families suffer. Members opposite talk about how much they care about law and order, but do they care whether the police and their families get holidays together? No, they do not give a damn.

So it is all right for National Party people to have 4 weeks’ holiday, and it was all right for the current leader of the National Party, when he was at the Reserve Bank, to have 4 weeks’ holiday, but it is not good enough for the police to have that. It is all right for National Party members to have 4 weeks’ holiday—in fact, most of them have about 52 weeks’ holiday a year—but it is not OK for health workers to have that. Four weeks’ holiday is not OK for the nurses and doctors who sweat their guts out to make sure that the health system of this country manages, but it is all right for National Party members. It is not all right for those wonderful emergency workers to have 4 weeks’ holiday. No! They and their families should pay the cost. But it is all right for National Party members and their families to have 4 weeks’ holiday, because somehow or other they are better people. Apparently, it is better to be a National Party member. It is a case of “Do what I say; do not do what I do.” They punish the families of workers—it does not matter whether the workers are police officers, emergency workers, health workers, or those people who are out there caring for the community. But it is all right for National Party people to have 4 weeks’ holiday.

The National Party disgusts me, it disgusts New Zealand, and it shows in the polls. We looked at the last election and at the one before it, and we looked at what New Zealanders were saying about the difference between employers and employees. They said they thought all New Zealanders should have a fair go. I think this legislation is giving New Zealanders a fair go. [Interruption] Listen to those members baying like the stuck pigs they are!

💬 Lindsay Tisch: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. The term that member used is unparliamentary. It is unparliamentary to call Opposition members “stuck pigs”. It was completely out of order.

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: I ask the member to withdraw that remark. I ask her to withdraw and apologise.

I withdraw and apologise.

I move, That the Holidays Amendment Bill be referred to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee for consideration, that the committee report the bill by 4 October 2004, and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time during a sitting of the House, except during questions for oral answer, during an evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, despite Standing Orders 191 and 194(1)(b) and (c).

Before I put that motion, I have an amendment in the name of the Hon Richard Prebble to refer the bill to the Commerce Committee, instead of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee.