Estimates Debate — Vote Labour

I rise to take a call on the estimates portion of Vote Labour. I want to raise three main issues at this stage, but to my mind they are very serious matters and they were raised in the questioning of the Minister during the estimates process in the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee.

I am not quite sure whether the Minister is aware that in the Employment Relations Act there is a very important section. It is not a very big section, but it is a pretty important one, and it basically states that the Act binds the Crown. Unfortunately, that small but crucial section seems to have been ignored, or disregarded, by the Government. Under the employment relations law nobody, not even the Crown, is above the law, so I would like the Minister in the chair, Nanaia Mahuta, to comment on a matter that I will now elaborate on a bit more.

Under our employment relations legislation there is a clear, unambiguous provision that a contract or an agreement between persons must not confer on a person a preference because that person is or is not a member of a union. So no preference can be conferred on a person in relation to the terms and conditions of employment because that person is or is not a member of a union. It is quite simple. Members can imagine our surprise at the response when we asked for an explanation of the preference payment of $500, which is taxpayer money, that is paid by this Labour Government specifically and only to union members: to members of the Public Service Association. They get a preference payment of $500. The response from the department was quite amazing, and, actually, worrying. Department officials said: “It’s not a preference payment. It’s a payment that’s negotiated by the collective agreement as part of the settlement of that collective agreement.”

So we inquired a bit further, and asked: “Is this not giving some staff an extra $500 over other staff?”. We were then told: “Well, it might not be. It might not be additional.” Then we were told—and it gets worse—that the union members get an extra $500 “not because they are a member of a union; it’s because they’re part of the collective agreement.” We all know that that is absolutely, totally, and completely absurd, because under our labour laws a person cannot be a party to a collective agreement without being a member of a union. So it is a preference payment. It is a preference payment that is prohibited under the Employment Relations Act. That Act does, in fact, bind the Crown. It does, in fact, bind the Labour Government, and it should be abided by.

Workers should not have their pay docked merely because they do not belong to a union. In the aged-care sector this Government is using taxpayer money—taxpayer money—to actively recruit New Zealanders to join the unions that provide it with support. The matter is worse than that. People will have read the recent media releases about the dispute between people at district health boards and Spotless Services. I do not intend to get involved in the merits or otherwise of that dispute. It is actually the form of it that is concerning, because that dispute reveals that 5 percent of the funding—this is taxpayer funding—will be paid to the union as a bargaining fee. That could be anywhere between $800,000 and $1 million, and do members know to whom it will be paid? It will be paid to the Service and Food Workers Union. Are we surprised at that, when this is the very same union that we are told received some $300,000—$350,000; $380,000—and paid it to the Labour Party, no doubt to get the future Minister of Finance Darien Fenton her place in this Parliament? I am concerned about this matter and I really do think the Minister needs to take a stance on it, because it is a lot of money, it is taxpayer money, and we have a duty to ensure that taxpayer money is spent properly and not contrary to the provisions of the law.

In this department we also have another admission that the department is again flouting other rules, this time by handing out $8 million worth of contracts—as my colleague Paula Bennett revealed—without going through the process of tendering.

💬 Craig Foss: Sounds familiar.

Exactly. Both those instances involve taxpayer money. The rules are there to safeguard that money, and those rules should be abided by—they should not be flouted.

When we have the spending of all of that money, we need to ask whether we are getting value for money. In the select committee we asked how productivity is measured; if we are spending all of that money on the public service, how do we know we are getting productivity across the public service? Do members know what the answer was? It was: “I don’t think we are in a position to say too much about that at this point.” Frankly, I think that is not good enough. We have an issue with regard to productivity, and it has been raised in the Minister’s briefing paper. We are not highly up there in the productivity stakes, the issue needs to be addressed, and an answer that says: “I don’t think we are in a position to say too much about that at this point.” is, I think, negligent.

That is not good enough, and I would like the Minister in the chair to take a call and be accountable, please, for the deliberate flouting of the law by the department.

What we had there from that National Party member, Kate Wilkinson, was a rave—an anti-union rave. Let union members negotiate the deals for union members and let people who are on individual contracts, who refuse to join unions, negotiate their own deals. Let them do that. But I ask the member not to come here and give an anti-union speech across this Chamber as though she somehow has gold in her hands. That is just absolute nonsense.

The fact of the matter is that the National side of the House is anti-union, and that member used that speech to attack some very good unions that are working hard for their members. The leader of the National Party and other National Party members bounce from cloud to cloud, trying very hard to find something to give themselves a little bit of substance, and another member of the National Party by the name of Mr Bill English claims to be the one grinding away at the real work. The real work is actually being done by Labour Ministers in a range of portfolio areas. That is the real work, while those members bounce around on clouds with very little style, looking for a bit of substance and not finding it. Substance is something they know nothing about, as has just been illustrated by that last member’s speech.

I want to talk briefly about the real work in Vote Labour, led by that excellent member my colleague the Hon Ruth Dyson. I tell the members of the Committee who did not really concentrate on the vote at all that this vote is about providing services to promote and support fair and productive employment relationships, safe and healthy people in workplaces, and issues—if members across the Chamber can recognise them—like safe management of hazardous substances. This vote is actually about creating innovative and productive workplaces, and that means becoming a high-wage, high-skilled, and high-value economy. From that last speech, I really wonder whether the members on that side of the Chamber know what a high-wage, high-skilled, high-value economy might mean.

To do that we need to focus on things like raising skill levels, and we are doing that work in this vote. We need to focus on producing more globally competitive firms, and we do. We need to concentrate on increasing business investment in equipment and technology, and there are many fine examples of that. We need to concentrate on increasing the value of work through raising workplace productivity, and that means changes in work culture and practices. That sort of work is actually happening, which may come as a surprise to members on the Opposition side.

We need to concentrate on working with business networks, and that is very well done by the Hon Ruth Dyson and by other members like the Hon Lianne Dalziel. We need to concentrate on that particularly in the small and medium enterprise sector. There is some very good work going on there, productive work that it would appear members on the Opposition side know little about. We need to concentrate on things like providing online tools, such as Holidays Online and the Employment Agreement Builder. I really wonder whether the members on the other side have even looked at some of the online tools of the Department of Labour. Perhaps they should look at the “ask a question” feature. It might do them some good. They might get some sensible answers that would help them when they go back to the real world outside Parliament after the 2008 election and actually have to know about things like business progress.

The Labour-led Government has a strong focus on proactive approaches, and those approaches are working. These are approaches that concentrate on higher-value work, higher-quality working lives, social dialogue, and the awareness of fundamental rights for workers like the right to negotiate collectively, which the last speaker might like to do a little bit more research on. All of that is bearing fruit. We now have every employee entitled to 4 weeks’ annual leave. Paid parental leave is available for the self-employed as well, and remember that it is this Government that has increased paid parental leave to 14 weeks. The pay and employment equity 5-year plan of action is under way, and that is something that members on this side are very proud of. National members might remember a certain Employment Equity Act that they repealed in 1990 as soon as they became the Government. Other things like quality flexible work are on the agenda.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Vote agreed to.

Vote Senior Citizens agreed to.

Vote Conservation agreed to.

Vote Housing