Employment Relations Amendment Bill

Even though this is a wide-ranging debate I have quite a narrow speech ready to talk to the purpose of the bill. There were demands from Mr Jones on the other side for me to get up and talk some sense. We have actually had a lot of sense spoken about this bill, because interestingly, again, similar to the KiwiSaver Bill, which was rushed and bulldozed through the other night, no Labour speakers have been speaking to the bill in this Committee stage, apart from, of course, the Minister in the chair who had some words earlier on.

I wanted to get up earlier to talk about the purpose of the bill, so I will just touch on that right now. Quite frankly, I think this bill, obviously, is purposeful. But I actually think its purpose is quite racist. I was listening to some of the speeches last night, particularly Mark Gosche’s. He was talking about the cleaners and how they were mostly Māori, Pacific Island, etc. I actually think the intent of this bill is, from what we have seen from Labour about its dependency culture, basically a bit of a Labour mantra: “If they’re brown keep them down, keep them dependent.” Because, actually, that is what this bill does. I find that quite disgusting in New Zealand in 2006, in spite of the rhetoric we constantly hear from them and the various placards and nonsense that they are putting out.

Why is this amendment necessary? Well, quite frankly it is payback time—payback time for the unions. I believe this is amendment No. 15 we are up to—the fine speakers earlier pointed that out. It is payback time, and I guess those unions are shouting something at the Labour Party that it has heard a lot in the last few weeks. Those three words are “pay it back”. We asked the Labour Party to pay back the taxpayers’ money that it allegedly illegally spent on its pledge card during the election. I guess the unions are now saying “pay it back” for the hundreds of thousands of dollars they donated. Some of the amounts are in dispute, according to an Investigate magazine. But they are looking for a return—a payback—for the money they poured into the Labour Party to pull it up that last 3 to 4 percent in the last week of the election. The Hon Bill English pointed out earlier today, in a very interesting press release, how much—I think it was $1.1 million—the Labour Party spent to buy the last election.

There has been a lot of talk, and a few heart-rending stories, about vulnerable workers. It kind of misses the point. All workers are vulnerable. All management is vulnerable. All companies are vulnerable. This is the world in which we live, unless we want to stick a great big fence around New Zealand, want to not import one iota, want to not export one iota, and want to have an average living age that goes back to something like 35-years-old. Either we participate in the world or we do not. That means we have to compete; we have to compete hard.

The only way we can grow the economy is through productivity so that the workers can be paid more—particularly the cleaning and service workers, who, I will be fair and admit, are at the bottom of the wage chain. For some of the work they do they deserve an awful lot more. I feel incredibly sorry at the moment for the cleaners in the Beehive—I heard all sorts of nonsense from various speakers last night about this—who, I believe, are currently having to work double time and double shifts to try to clean up some of the mess and nonsense that has been going through the Beehive in relation to the various scandals right at the moment.

From reading the purpose of this bill it is clear that Labour assumes we are stuck in Yorkshire textile mills in 1906. Well, it should get with the programme; this is 2006. There is not a constant battle between labour and capital. We have moved on from there—it was a long time ago. I guess, if one looks in a rear-view mirror—as the Labour visionaries do—one would therefore keep trying to resurrect what the environment and conditions were like back in 1906. That is exactly where the medium to long term impacts of this amendment bill will take us. In the short term the amendment bill will make some nice headlines—good on it—but over the medium to long term this will drag New Zealand back.

If we need more evidence, then we should think about where our unemployment rate was when we had rigid labour laws and contracts in the 1970s. Unemployment was nudging 10, 12, 13, 14, 15 percent—it went very, very high. Now we are suddenly in a virtually full employment period, thanks to high commodity prices, etc., yet the rigidity of labour market regulations in this bill will suffocate New Zealand and strap it down, as we look longingly across to Sydney, to Australia, and to all our friends and whānau who have moved over there.

I rise to take a brief call—far be it for me to say I was goaded to do so by my colleagues on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee—to pose the question that underlies the Employment Relations Amendment Bill: what are the qualities that comprise a fair and decent society? And why do we not hear anything about them from our colleagues on the Opposition side of the Chamber? Let us think about what some of them might be.

One of those qualities is equity. How are we to give expression to or recognise equity? One of the quickest ways to do so, and one of the most enduring qualities of equity, is the manner in which it is to be found in human relationships. I think it is very disappointing and backward looking for the Opposition to constantly force human relationships and human interaction in the context of the labour force through a very narrow, miserly opening. No, our approach is to build on what was picked up by that very important judicial institution the Employment Court, which found a loophole and identified a failing. The Government, in its usual vigilant and thoughtful way, will not let that loophole continue, because the loophole diminishes the status of vulnerable employees and also undermines their capacity to maintain a fair and reasonable level of earnings.

We can have lots of debates as to whether this legislation will make us more like Australia than we have been. I think that scratched record has long since lost its appeal in terms of the broader public sentiment. No, the public are not interested in that. They all know that every time a member from the Opposition side of the Chamber talks about how good Australia is, he or she is actually diminishing the status of those New Zealanders who are prepared to buckle down and make this country a great place—possibly the greatest place in the world—in which to live.

What else underlies this particular approach? Well, we need to have premier legislation. In order to advance premier legislation, one needs power. To attract and sustain power so that one enjoys the benefits of the Treasury benches, one needs appeal. And in order to ensure that one’s appeal penetrates all areas of the electorate, one needs to have vision, which is precisely what underlies this thoughtful piece of legislation. We envision a time when both the owners of businesses—the providers of capital—and the providers of labour meet and seek an accommodation. Why should vulnerable, displaced, and possibly even marginalised workers in large institutions be tossed aside like chaff in the wind of change that is driven by very short-sighted business decisions? No, people need to have their respect, and esteem needs to be accorded to them. That is what we say about vision.

How do we actually create a nation where all people can feel that their particular talents contribute to a deep, abiding, and very embracing concept of identity? Well, we have to respect their rights, not only as consumers and not only as the fortunate few who have a handsome array of property rights, but also as the providers of labour. That is what this brilliant piece of legislation seeks to do.

Laundry workers, up and down the electorate offices of this country, know who is looking after them. In addition to that, in terms of age-related residential care, not only is this bill a contribution to that whole sector—we have already contributed to it by means of our very thoughtful and handsome policies that address the concerns of the aged—but we are now ensuring that there is a platform of security and safety underneath those whom we charge with looking after some of the most vulnerable people in society. What about the caretakers in education? The caretakers in education are obviously schoolteachers and principals, but they are also the people who do the work that goes unseen and, often, unheralded. Why on earth should they live in the context of a set of contract negotiations, in a state of fear that their entire lives will be turned upside down and that their families will be in a state of upheaval? Anyone who supports that is actually focused on a very destructive way forward.

I was listening to that member, Shane Jones, across the other side of the Chamber, talking about what Labour believes it knows best. I have to say the member was talking pure ideology that was so detached from the market that we live in that it was hard to swallow. He referred to members on this side of the House narrowing down their thinking; when one stops to think about it, from what I have seen of the process while being in this House and listening to the debates around the Employment Relations Amendment Bill, one can only ask where on earth this legislation is taking us. What is its purpose? It is hugely concerning. Where is this Government taking us? What is it trying to do? We are doing nothing more than taking a backwards step.

I would just like to draw the member’s attention to what hard-working New Zealanders aspire to. We are aware that there have been some hard-fought realities inside our economy. Back when the Labour Government of the 1980s was in power, some severe steps were taken that were necessary; it was the freeing up and opening up of the primary sector to market forces. We had to learn to stand on our own two feet. When we look at the Employment Relations Amendment Bill I am afraid we see that it is a step backwards from that. In actual fact, when we look at the growth achieved in the primary sector we see that it has been upward of 4 percent per year, which is absolutely outstanding. Unfortunately, when we look at the domestic economy we see that it has been performing poorly at only 1.1 percent.

What happens in the rural areas, with our shearing gangs and various other contractors—whether they are pruning grapes in Marlborough or Martinborough, or shearing sheep throughout the country—is that their situation is performance based. I believe that is something we must celebrate. As I come into the House, having been a shearer myself, I find it very, very hard to comprehend that we—

Progress reported.

Report adopted.

The House adjourned at 5.56 p.m.