Employment Relations (Rest Breaks and Meal Breaks) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Employment Relations (Rest Breaks and Meal Breaks) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be referred to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee.

This bill has been introduced out of necessity, for the sake of common sense. Statutory rest and meal breaks were added to the Employment Relations Act under the previous administration last year and came into effect on 1 April 2009. National supported that legislation then as it gave statutory recognition of breaks, reflecting standard practice across New Zealand. This Government still supports the intention of that law, and wants to assure all New Zealanders that their right to adequate breaks will retain statutory protection. To make that perfectly clear, I say all workers will remain entitled to reasonable rest and meal breaks under this bill. I expect that, as was the case with the original law, most workers will see no change to their arrangements under this bill.

If the existing legislation provided sufficient flexibility, this bill would not even be before the House. The fact is that the existing law has created a number of problems due to its being overly prescriptive both in terms of what constitutes a break and of the extent of flexibility about when breaks may be taken. Although professions such as sole-operated air traffic control towers had functioned quite happily for 60 years without issue, they now find themselves to be in breach of the law. Labour claims that its amendments fixed that issue, but that is not the case. The Civil Aviation Authority made it clear that if towers were to be closed as required under the law, they had to be shut at the same time in order to ensure that pilots were not forced to deal with a forever-changing timetable of closures around the country. That meant that New Plymouth, Napier, Gisborne, Rotorua, and Invercargill would all have faced disruption to their schedules, cancelled flights, and a resulting loss of revenue.

It is not only air traffic controllers who have been caught out by this law. Pharmacies, schools, and sole-charge operations such as petrol stations have all struggled to implement it. School principals have raised concerns that, if insisted upon, the current law could push out the hours that a school has to stay open to beyond 4 p.m. It is important that the law is workable and practical for every school. Other hard-working New Zealanders have also felt the impractical effects of the current law. For example, I received a letter from a mother who works part-time as a night-fill staffer for a supermarket. She was unhappy about the changes. She and her colleagues have always worked from 7 p.m. until 11:30 p.m., with a 15-minute paid break at 9.30 p.m. The new law has resulted in them now taking a 30-minute unpaid break at 11 p.m. and returning to the job for the final half hour, eventually knocking off at midnight. None of the staff want to have that 30-minute break; all they want is to do the job and go home to bed before midnight, not to sit in the staffroom doing nothing. It was suggested that in order to avoid taking the break they cut back their hours to work 4-hour shifts, but that would mean a loss of income. Clearly, there is a practical problem here, and that is the fundamental concern with regard to the law as it stands.

No one opposes a worker’s right to have meal and rest breaks, but dictating a general rule for every single situation does not allow enough flexibility. Instead we are left with instances where many employers are faced with two choices: either to continue as normal and break the law, or wear the cost of compliance and inconvenience. Neither is an appealing option, especially when the staff and the employer had their own arrangements that have long been agreed to. I have received letters from employers and employees about this issue, questioning why they cannot just keep to their arrangements, which have worked without complaint for years. Unfortunately, the practical implications of the current law simply do not match up with its intention.

This bill is about common sense. The National Government supports all workers’ right to take breaks. That was why we voted for the amending legislation in 2008, but the principal Act needs to be fixed. Its prescriptive nature means that it is being used to cause disruption and create difficulties that did not exist before. On paper it might have appeared sound, but practically it is flawed.

This bill will amend the principal Act so that it provides a requirement for employers to either allow for rest and meal breaks that give employees a reasonable opportunity for refreshment or make compensatory provision. These amendments will move the law from prescription to flexibility, encouraging employers and employees to negotiate terms that best suit their workplace. This will maintain service or production continuity and is more in line with the flexible arrangements that work so well across the country. This bill will provide flexibility, so that the timing of rest and meal breaks suits, as far as is reasonable, the continuity of service or production at the workplace. The nature of breaks varies according to the nature of work. The bill provides for employees and employers to negotiate alternative compensatory measures in lieu of breaks, such as later start or earlier finish times, or accumulated time in lieu. Such arrangements are not facilitated by the current legislation.

A code of practice that provides additional guidance for employers and employees on determining suitable rest and meal break arrangements will also be developed. This will help small and medium sized businesses to identify some workable solutions on the duration and timing of breaks in different circumstances. Employers’ obligations under the Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992 will continue to apply; so too will the duty of good faith under the principal Act.

This amendment will preserve the legislative intent to provide breaks that support employees’ well-being, but it will offer greater common sense and flexibility in order to ensure that our laws support productivity in New Zealand. I commend this bill to the House.

The Employment Relations (Rest Breaks and Meal Breaks) Amendment Bill is an interesting bill from the Minister of Labour, Kate Wilkinson. It was very, very urgent. In fact, if one looks at the bill, one can immediately accuse the Minister of two things: first, of being very, very slow to get her legislation into the House, and, secondly, of being lazy and not even getting clause 1, “Title”, correct. She has stated the wrong year in that clause, for example. That is just a sign of how poorly this Minister has focused on her legislation and on the requirement to get it right.

I will also quote from the material that the Minister has supplied to us. The “Consultation” section of the explanatory note of the bill states: “Officials have advised they have concerns about developing the proposed amendments to the rest breaks and meal breaks provisions of the principal Act at speed and without adequate consultation. This may result in policy being designed and implemented with unintended consequences, including unforeseen regulatory compliance impacts and administrative costs.”

We have now the major embarrassment of a Minister who introduced a bill nearly a year ago as something that was really, really urgent, but badly drafted, badly consulted on, and not worked on properly. Then she left it just sitting on the Order Paper for that period of time. What did she say at the time was the reason for the bill? She said there was an urgent problem with regard to air traffic controllers. Do members know what the urgent problem was? It was that some dipstick in the Civil Aviation Authority had indicated that everyone had to have meal breaks, all around the country, at the same time, and that pilots were too thick to work out that when their flights were delayed they had to contact air traffic controllers to say they would be late. Pilots do that anyway. When pilots are off their schedule, they always contact air traffic controllers. It comes up on the screens of the air traffic controllers, so they know whether a plane will be late and whether their meal or rest break might be delayed. It is a basic safety thing. There was never a problem, other than one that was very close to being a figment of the imagination in the mind of the Minister of Labour, who was scrambling for an excuse in order to tip the existing legislation over.

But of course what the Minister forgot was that as the amending legislation was coming through the House in 2008, she was less than full and frank. She did not really tell us what she thought. She was in a pre-election sort of phase of not wanting to disturb anyone and of pretending that she was friendly to workers, especially women workers. She was in that sort of phase at the time, and she made some really interesting comments on that legislation. She said: “it merely codifies what is already happening in most workplaces”, and it “should have been relatively uncontroversial.” So what has changed? What has changed in workplaces since that time?

💬 Sue Moroney: Ah, air traffic controllers.

Well, air traffic controllers and nothing else.

Then there was a lovely statement. I very rarely agree with the Minister, but it was one she made on the third reading of the amending legislation in 2008. She said “Rest breaks and meal breaks are not there just for health and safety issues, of course; they are also there for the socialising impact between employees so that they get to know each other and it can be a happy and productive workplace, and we certainly support that.” That is what the Minister said, and she is right. We have a cup of tea together, we have a break and a chat, we get to know our workmates, and we have a happier workplace and are more productive. That is a good thing. Why is she wrecking that now? Why were productive workplaces important before the election but not important after the election? There has been very little in what the Minister has said that would convince us that they are at all important.

What we are seeing, though, is something that comes from a Minister who, before her time in Parliament, was one of the main promoters of the Employment Contracts Act. Kate Wilkinson has had quite an interesting history in industrial relations law over a period of time. We are seeing her get back to her natural roots. She is getting back to the point of supporting the sweatshop employers whom she supported and represented in the past, when she represented them from outside Parliament. Now she is representing them from inside Parliament; she is doing their bidding here tonight. Notwithstanding her fine words before the election, when she was pretending to be friendly to workers, especially women workers, she has now turned her back on them. She has rejected them, and she is saying that she does not care if they do not get a break. She is saying they can work right through that time and have a break at the end of their shift. It is sort of wonderful: one of the things that will flow out of this legislation is that people will work for their 8 hours, and will then be allowed to take their two 10-minute breaks and then half an hour.

💬 Darien Fenton: Unpaid.

Unpaid for the half-hour. That is the sort of approach that this Minister is promoting at this stage.

The Minister should just admit that this bill is badly drafted. She has not used the last year, in which time the bill has been sitting around, to get it updated. She has done no further consultation on this bill in that time, and she was too damned lazy to update it.

💬 Carol Beaumont: Shoddy.

It is shoddy—like John Key with his trust, really.

💬 Sue Moroney: Sloppy.

Sloppy is the word. Like the Prime Minister, the Minister has been sloppy in her approach to her work. She is so far out of date that she did not even have the good grace to get the bill printed with the right date in it. Now we have the Minister of Justice in the House, and he has a much better reputation than Kate Wilkinson for consulting on these things. He certainly would never get to the first reading of a bill and have the wrong date in it. He would never do that; he is far too competent to do that. At some time over the next 10 minutes it would be good if Simon Power had a word in Kate Wilkinson’s ear and told her that when she introduces legislation, she should not be sloppy but should just get the date right to start with.

I rise to speak on the first reading of the Employment Relations (Rest Breaks and Meal Breaks) Amendment Bill and to say that we give our full support to our very diligent and hard-working Minister of Labour. The previous speaker, Trevor Mallard, did not understand the nature of this legislation. He looked at it from a purely political perspective, not from the practical perspective of trying to encourage New Zealanders in the workforce to do their jobs to the best of their ability and to achieve the degree of efficiency and productivity that everybody wishes to see in the workforce.

As chairman of the great Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, which will consider this bill—

💬 Allan Peachey: Outstanding.

—it is an outstanding committee, is it not—I say that we look forward to debating this bill in the committee. No doubt the Labour members of the committee, who are very constructive members, will be speaking later in this debate. They will assist us in the process of going through the public submissions and looking at the heart of this legislation.

💬 Carol Beaumont: Always want to hear from the public.

Yes, I know. We always want to hear from the public, and that is the whole point of the submission process. But I think the public also has to have a little bit of a reality check about what the previous Government did in passing the existing legislation.

I know that Sue Moroney, my colleague across the Chamber, used the existing legislation as the defining feature of her being in the previous Labour Government for its final 3 years. That legislation was the thing that she passed. It was her pride and joy. The thing is that the previous Government had to pass it under the cover of other debatable issues in the labour relations area, rather than having it pass as legislation standing on its own two feet. In doing so, that Government created an environment in which many political parties voted for that legislation in this House.

Basically, this legislation is looking at a real issue in a constructive way. This Government looks at one issue and we work out the solutions for it. We are not trying to hide it in a series of pieces of legislation around other issues; we will be up front, let the public have their say, and work through this issue.

We need to have that flexibility in our workforce and in our employment relations for productivity and also for personal reasons. I think one thing the last speaker, Trevor Mallard, said that is true is that in an employment arrangement, there is the need for staff—employers and employees—to come together and have that time where they mix, mingle, and learn from each other about what is going on in their job and their business at that point in time. This legislation will do that, because we are giving more flexibility. We are not having a rigid approach that could potentially limit the ability of that relationship to develop.

We look forward to this legislation going before the select committee. It is all about providing flexibility so that the employment arrangement can develop and foster that degree of unity amongst staff in the business and employers, and so that we can achieve the best productivity and success for people working in a particular industry at a particular time. We look forward to the legislation coming before the select committee, where I am sure that all members will address the questions in a very open and fair manner.

I think that last contribution to the debate on the Employment Relations (Rest Breaks and Meal Breaks) Amendment Bill goes to show that National has no idea what meal breaks and rest periods are all about. Not once in that member’s contribution, nor virtually at all in the contribution of the Minister of Labour, was the question of health and safety in the workplace addressed. That is exactly what meal breaks and rest periods are all about. It is not about people somehow having a right to spend some time chatting with their workmates; it is about all the research and evidence that exists not only in New Zealand but internationally that tells us that when workers are fatigued, and when they have not had the opportunity to rehydrate and eat, that is when things go wrong at work.

When I talk about things going wrong at work, I am not just talking about a widget not being produced properly; I am not just talking about shareholders not getting the maximum profit out of the workplace that they might have wanted on that day; I am talking about people losing their lives. That is the seriousness of the bill we are addressing this evening.

National says it is introducing flexibility, but it is actually giving these workplaces a recipe for disaster. The Minister spoke about giving flexibility so that workers could decide to have their break at the end of the shift. Well, let us think about that from a health and safety perspective. If someone is in an environment where they work for 8 hours before they get to have a break—because they have used the wonderful flexibility that this bill affords to not have a break for 8 hours—and on hour 7½ they make a big, fatal mistake that ends either their life or that of a co-worker, will the Minister stand up and take responsibility for that because she has allowed that flexibility into the workplace? That is exactly what National is proposing to introduce into a workplace where it knows the power relationship is uneven.

The idea that workers and their employers will sit down together and mutually agree that the workers will not have their break until the end of the shift is a complete nonsense, and National knows it. The employer will be making these decisions. That is what this bill is all about: giving carte blanche to employers to decide what is in their best interests in terms of productivity. Never mind the health and safety of the workforce! Never mind what workers actually want to do! National is giving that right over to employers to decide how they will do it. Well, that has had some really disastrous results in the past, which is why the previous Labour Government brought a bill before this House and successfully put it through Parliament. Yes, I say to Mr Bennett that I am proud of that. As a member who has actually put some legislation through this House, I know that if Mr Bennett ever achieves that he might also understand how important it is that when one has actually gone through that process, a Government that never warned anyone it was going to do so does not come along afterwards and tamper with it and take the impact of that bill away.

When I came into Parliament one of the things I wanted to do was ensure that we had better work-life balance, not for people within this precinct—I am sure you understand that, Mr Assistant Speaker Roy—but for all New Zealanders. That is why Labour’s bill was so important. It ensured that workers had the right to take breaks at work. From listening to National members debating this issue, one would think that Labour had put in place a bill that said people had to stop work at 10 o’clock and they had to stop work for 10 minutes. That Act of Parliament did no such thing. It simply provided for two 10-minute tea breaks and a half-hour lunch break for the average length working day. It was no more prescriptive or restrictive than that, yet National is pretending that there was a straitjacketed Act of Parliament that was creating havoc throughout the workplaces in this land. That is a load of rubbish.

Some of the stories that led me to argue for this area of law to be fixed up were from people in very vulnerable parts of our employment area. The particular group that came to see me were people working in service stations in the Waikato. They were in the position that they could not take a meal break at all during the day.

💬 Hon Member: The Minister is laughing.

Well, members opposite may find this extremely funny, but what had happened was that the staffing hours had been cut for the service stations right throughout the area. We all know that gas companies have been making money hand over fist, yet they were cutting back hours. They cut back the hours to the bone, and it meant that every time a car drove on to the forecourt the worker, who may have been trying to have his or her meal break, had to stop eating lunch, go out, and serve that customer. Repeatedly these workers were not getting meal breaks. That was the group that came to see me. On further investigation, I discovered that it was an even larger problem.

I wonder what investigation the Minister did before she went down this path. In 2006 there was an investigation into the causative factors associated with summertime workplace fatalities. It was an important piece of work because, amongst other things, it discovered that here in New Zealand there are two peak times when work-related fatal incidents are most likely to occur. I would really like the Minister to take heed of this because it is very important with regard to this bill. One of those peak times is in the late morning, between 10.30 and 12.30; the other is mid-afternoon, between 2.30 and 3.30. The trend is applicable to all industries, but is particularly relevant to the agricultural sector.

The Minister ought to be taking that sort of thing into account. It screams out to me that those are the times of the day when people ought to have had a break. They should have taken 10 minutes to have a drink of water—I feel like I will need to do that myself in a minute—rehydrate, get their energy levels back up again, take a little break from work, and then get back into it. The evidence internationally and in New Zealand tells us that this prevents deaths in our workplaces. That is the reason for rest periods and meal breaks; not so employers can shuffle it to the end of workers’ shifts just before they are about to go off and have the big break anyway, but actually to prevent accidents from happening in the workplace.

I think it is very interesting that the Minister not only has not looked at the research that was done here in New Zealand, in preparing this bill, but also did not listen to her own officials when they warned her—and the official documents tell us that they warned her—not to have a knee-jerk response to the airline dispute that was happening at the time. They told the Minister that it was an industrial dispute, and urged the Minister not to have a knee-jerk, legislative response to it, because if she became the kind of Minister who uses legislation to intervene in industrial disputes, there would be no end to it.

Did that Minister listen? The Minister clearly did not listen; she went against her officials’ advice. She has not looked at the research and evidence. She does not care about health and safety in the workplace. She does not understand the role of meal breaks and rest periods with regard to health and safety in the workplace, and she is putting New Zealand workers at risk.

The Green Party will be opposing this Employment Relations (Rest Breaks and Meal Breaks) Amendment Bill for many of the reasons that have been expounded by the previous speaker, Sue Moroney. It is an important bill on health and safety concerns; it undermines the health and safety of workers. Breaks and meal breaks are important, not only to prevent injuries and deaths but also so that people can have a rest, be human, and not be slaves to a clock, working hour after hour without proper rest.

If we look at the explanatory note of the bill, we see that there does not appear to be anything wrong with the status quo. The explanatory note states: “Under the status quo, employers and employees are encouraged to work out mutually satisfactory arrangements that fit within current legislative provisions, and can draw on the mediation services of the Department of Labour to assist them to do so.” Apparently, the air traffic controllers, who have been used as an example for the bill going forward, have worked out the situation together with their employers, so that is not a reason to proceed with the bill.

I think that the greater harm—and it was outlined by the previous speaker—is that there is an unequal relationship in the workplace. Many workers in non-unionised retail outlets, restaurants, etc., work for long periods without breaks now. I know some of them myself. A young 19-year-old I know works in a shop. I talked to her recently and asked when she had her breaks. She said that they were very busy in that shop and sometimes they go for hours without a break. She was not even aware of the law; she was not a member of a union. That is happening in workplace after workplace already, so rather than make it easy for employers to get away without giving appropriate rest breaks, we should stay with the present law and not proceed with this amendment.

John Ryall, who is the national secretary of the Service and Food Workers Union, wrote an article criticising this new amendment. He said that his union made a submission to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. It brought forward the case of a union member, an Indian immigrant worker, James Joseph, who had the problem of working split shifts. He worked from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and then from 4.30 p.m. to 11 p.m. When he insisted on having a short break every 3 hours, he was called a troublemaker and was sacked. He was told by the employer that it was just not possible because the restaurant was too busy. That can happen in workplace after workplace.

To enable proper rest periods, sometimes the employer has to be subject to a certain inconvenience—that is the reality—in order to protect the health and safety, and the rest periods of workers. That is what, perhaps, some people in the National Government do not quite understand. National members have said that this legislation is important for sole-charge workers and for air traffic controllers. In the past, bus drivers have been used as an example. Well, it seems to me that the very people we would want to be the most alert, and to have proper breaks, would be air traffic controllers and bus drivers, because it is not just their health and safety that is of concern. If a plane comes down, all sorts of people will be killed and all sorts of families will be left with a tragedy. It is similarly so with bus drivers. If a bus driver gets a bit tired and goes off the road or crashes into a car, what happens?

From any way we look at it, we should not allow a law that brings in the looseness of compensatory measures. Workers will be able to go without a rest break for a few hours, as long as employers provide compensatory measures. But those are very ill-defined as to their frequency and length. There is just a bit in the legislation to say that such measures can be time in lieu, or a different start or finish time. Exactly what that amounts to is not defined in the legislation. So things are being set up for the employer to determine the provision without the worker, who is often in a very disadvantaged position, particularly if he or she is un-unionised, being able to correct the situation.

I think that this bill is a departure from New Zealand’s tradition. We have an old tradition going back through New Zealand’s industrial history of awards of having clearly defined lunch and smoko breaks. It is true that we are a bit more flexible now, but we do not want to depart too much from the tradition where workers have smoko breaks—we would not call them smoko breaks now; we would call them morning and afternoon tea breaks—and at least half an hour for lunch. That is something we grew up with, something that we were proud of, and something that differentiated us from the United States, for example, which did not have such legislation. I was quite horrified many years ago, when I was in industrial situations where we had smoko breaks, lunch breaks, and very rigid times, to learn that in America they did not have any legislation protecting that situation, whatsoever.

We have to protect what we have gained over the years. The Green Party will be opposing this particular legislation.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker, kia ora tātau katoa. Nā runga i te hiahia kia kōrerotia tō tātau reo Māori i roto i te Whare nei, kua kawe haerehia tēnei kōrero i roto i te reo Māori.

Ehara i te mea nō ināia tonu nei tēnei momo āhuatanga nō mua noa atu, nō ngā tau kua hipa. I a au e āta rangahau ana i tēnei o ngā pire ka āta kite atu, ā, i te tau 1908, i tū tētahi raruraru nui o roto i a koe pea i Te Wai Pounamu i te takiwā o Te Poutini, i te tāone o Blackball. E ai ki tā wētahi, kāore tētahi o tērā hunga, o tērā tāone, i whakaae kia mutu wawe nei tana kai. I te tekau mā rima meneti i whakaritea mai ai mō te wā tina. Ko te ingoa o te tangata nei ko Hickey. Ka mutu, nā runga i tana kore whakaae kia mutu tana kai i te wā whakaritea mai ai, ko ia me ōna hoa e ono i panaia i te mahi. Ā, i te kaiwaro tēnei o roto o te tāone o Blackball. I tērā wā ko te kaiwhakahaere o tērā wāhi, i hiahia ia kia whakarahi ake ngā hāora mahi mō te rā, ki te tekau hāora. Nā, nā wai rā, nā wai rā, ā, i pahū mai tērā mea e kīa ana ko te Blackball strike, ā, ka mutu, i puta mai te uniana me tana kore hiahia ki te whaiwhai haere i tērā tikanga, ā, he hiahia kē nō rātau kia waru hāora i te rā mō te wā mahi. Nā, i haere te take nei ki te kōti, ā, ka mutu, i whainahia ngā kaiwaro nei, ka mutu, kāore ngā tāngata nei i hiahia ki te utu i ngā nama, ā, i haria katoatia wā rātau taputapu i hokona, engari i tōna mutunga mai ka kī mai ngā kaiwaro kia kaua e hoko ngā taputapu e kōrero ake nei. E ai ki taku mōhio e toru ngā marama e pēnei ana te āhuatanga, ā, tōna mutunga mai me kī, i hoki ngā tāngata nei ki roto i wā rātau mahi.

Ā, i pēnei rā taku whakamārama ki a koe, Mr Assistant Speaker i te mea, anei tātau i tēnei wā tonu nei kotahi rau tau mai i tērā wā, ā, e kōrerohia ana tēnei pire, āhua ōrite tōna pūtake, tōna ngako, engari arā anō ētahi paku rerekētanga. E ai ki tā te pire, me whakarite i ētahi wā whakatā, ētahi wā kai, me te kī anō hoki me whakaaetia ngā wā me te roa o te kai i waenganui i te kaiwhakahaere rānei, te pāhi rānei, te rangatira rānei o te mahi me te kaimahi. Koinei kei te pūtake. Ki te kore, ā, ka mutu, me whiriwhirihia ētahi wā e pai ana ki a rāua mō te whakatā me te kai. Nā, taku mōhio tērā pea ka ohorere ētahi o ngā kaimahi, ngā kaiwhakahaere o ētahi toa, kāore ētahi momo tikanga pēnei i ēnei, e whakahaeretia ana i tēnei wā tonu nei, arā, mō tētahi wā kia kai te tangata, te kaimahi i tāna kai. Nō reira, nā runga i tērā whakaaro, tērā pea e tika ana kia tae mai tētahi ture pēnei i tēnei, me kī, kia whai wāhi ngā tāngata ki ēnei momo tikanga, arā, mō te whakatā, te roa o te whakatā me te kai i wā rātau kai. Tērā pea i pōhehe ētahi, i reira tonu tēnei momo tikanga i mua i te mea, ko te nuinga o tātau he kapu tī, he kapu kawhe rānei me te miraka. Koinei te āhuatanga o wā tātau mahi, o wā tātau noho i roto i te Whare Pāremata, ka mutu, i roto i ngā toa. Engari, te āhua nei kāore tērā i te tika mō te katoa o Aotearoa.

I a au e āta titiro ana ki tēnei pire i rongo au, tata ki te 93 pai hēneti o ngā kaimahi kei roto, me kī, he kirimana ā-mahi wā rātau, ā, kei roto i ērā kirimana, he wāhi anō rā mō te whakatā, ka mutu, ko te wāhi ki te kai mō te kapu tī rānei. Nō reira tēnei ture e kore e paku pā atu ki tērā, nō reira he mea pai tērā āhuatanga ki a au. Ā, i a au e rangahau ana, ka kite atu anō hoki, e tata ki te 18 pai hēneti o ngā kaimahi o Aotearoa, kei roto i ngā uniana i tēnei wā tonu nei. Nō reira, te āhua nei ko te nuinga o te hunga kāore i te tino whai i te uniana, ana ko tērā te hunga kei roto i ngā mahi pēnei i te mahi hōtērā, te mahi hoko kai, tērā momo āhuatanga, nā runga pea i te āhuatanga o te hunga taiohi, o te hunga rangatahi kei roto i tērā momo mahi. Kāti, i roto i tēnei ao hurihuri he pai tonu kia pēnei tonu tātau, kia whai wāhi anō rā ki te whakatā me te kai. He mea pai kia whakaora i te tangata, pēnei i tā Sue Moroney e kōrero nei, kia whai wāhi te tangata ki te whakaora i a ia, whakapiki i tana ora, kia whakahihiko i a ia. Nō reira koia tērā te painga o tēnei momo pire.

Ka mutu, i a tātau e wetewete nei i tēnei pire, ko te mate kē, ana kei te pūtake o tana kōrero anō hoki, me whakaae ngā mea e rua, te kaimahi me te rangatira, arā, te pāhi o te mahi. Ki te kore e rāua tahi e whakaae ki te hāora, ki te roa rānei o te whakatā, ā, he raruraru kei te haere, he raruraru kei te haere. Nō reira, ki te kore rātau e whakaae, ki te roa rānei, kia pēnei rawa tana whakatā, ā, ka mutu, te tikanga ka waiho ake mā te rangatira, mā te pāhi rānei e whakatau. Anei, anei te roa, anei ngā hāora. Nō reira, tērā pea ka raruraru i reira, ka raruraru i reira.

Ka mutu, tērā pea ko te raru nui kei roto i tēnei kupu i te reo Pākehā, ana ko te “reasonableness” i te mea, kei a Stevie Chadwick te tikanga o tōna “reasonable”, kei a Te Ururoa Flavell te tikanga o tōku “reasonable”. He rerekē anō rā te tikanga o tēnei kupu “reasonable”. Nō reira koinei tētahi whakatūpato i roto i tēnei pire i te mea, tērā pea nā runga i te tikanga o tēnei kupu “reasonable”, ka pahū mai, ka raruraru ā te wā pea.

Nō reira, ko te Pāti Māori tēnei e whakaae atu ki te tautoko i te āhuatanga o te tiaki i ngā kaimahi, ā, ka mutu, me whakarite āhuatanga i te wāhi mahi kia noho hauora, kia noho ora ai te tangata i roto i ngā mahi katoa, kia kore ai a ia e raruraru nā runga i te āhuatanga o ngā raru o ngā pēhitanga kei runga i a ia. Ka mutu, arā nō nei ētahi mea me kaua e waiho kia iri hei mea tautohetohe i waenganui i te pāhi me te rangatira o te mahi. Nō reira, ko te pātai nui ki a mātau, ko tērā e pā ana ki te nohonga o te kaimahi me te rangatira, ko te chief rānei, ko te pāhi rānei o te mahi, nā runga i te tikanga o tērā kupu “reasonable”.

Kāti, me kī ka waihotia ake tēnei hei mea tautoko mā te Pāti Māori i tōna pānuitanga tuatahi, ā, kia kite mai ai i te āhuatanga o ngā kōrero ka tae mai ki te komiti whāiti. Ka mutu tērā, ana ka āta titiro anō rā te Pāti Māori ki te hōhonutanga o ngā kōrero ka puta, ka whakatauhia ā muri ake i tērā. Nō reira, nā runga i tērā kōrerokia ora tātau.

[Greetings to you, Mr Assistant Speaker, and to us all. Because of the desire for the Māori language to be heard in the House, this speech will be delivered in Māori.

It is not as though the issue around meal breaks is a current one, but it has been around for a long time. As I researched this bill carefully among others, I discovered that a huge problem erupted on the West Coast of the South Island in the town of Blackball in 1908. According to some, a local of that town refused to end his meal quickly in the stipulated time of 15 minutes for lunch. Hickey was this person’s name. Because he refused to end his meal in the allocated time, he and six of his workmates were fired. This took place at the Blackball mine. The manager of that mine at the time wanted to increase the working day to 10 hours. Eventually, the legendary Blackball strike broke out, when the union became involved because it did not want the working hours increased to 10 hours but kept at 8 hours. This matter was taken to court and the miners were fined. However, the miners refused to pay, and their possessions were seized and auctioned to raise the money to pay the fine. The miners told everyone not to buy the auctioned goods. As I understand it, this went on for 3 months, until the men were finally reinstated.

I have gone about it this way, Mr Assistant Speaker, because here we are again, 100 years from that incident, debating this bill today, and although the reason is quite different, there might be only some minor differences. The bill states that the duration of rest breaks and meal breaks should be agreed upon between the employer, boss, or chief, and the employee. This is the nub. If this does not occur, the two must negotiate the duration of the breaks acceptable to both. I think employers and shop managers will be surprised that laws were not already in place around the provision of meal breaks for workers. So perhaps it is time that a law like this is introduced that addresses the duration of rest breaks and meal breaks, although one would think it would be a case of basic rights, like providing tea, coffee, and milk. That is the situation here in Parliament in regard to our work and environment. It is like that in shops, as well. But that does not seem to apply to most of New Zealand.

In the process of examining this bill, I found out that nearly 93 percent of active collective agreements already provide rest breaks and meal breaks, and because this bill will not affect that at all, it is all good to me. During my research, however, I also found out that at the moment, nearly 18 percent of workers in New Zealand belong to trade unions. So it appears that the majority of those not in unions, and more likely to be affected, working in jobs such as those in the hospitality industry, hotels, fast-food outlets, and so on, are young workers. In this evolving world, we would expect employers to be already providing adequate breaks. It is beneficial that one has a chance to re-energise, as Sue Moroney suggested, to re-hydrate, restore energy, and health levels and focus as well. So that is a positive in this bill.

However, while we debate this bill, there is an aspect that the member has identified as being crucial to this bill, and that is the employer and the employee. Both the employer or the boss, and the worker, must agree. If neither of those two agree to the duration of the rest, we have a real, big, enduring problem on our hands. If there is no agreement, that would mean that it would be left to the employer or the boss to make the decision—here, whether one likes it or not, is the duration. So right there, and for sure, will be a stalemate.

In addition, there is also a problem perhaps with the English word “reasonableness”, because Steve Chadwick has her own idea what “reasonable” means to her, and I, Te Ururoa Flavell, have my own idea what that word means to me. The word “reasonable” has many interpretations. So just a cautionary word that having this word “reasonable” in the bill may possibly create problems in the future.

Therefore, the Māori Party supports the right of workers to be treated fairly and with dignity, and to have a safe and healthy workplace and not to be burdened by any stress. Further to that, discontent and disagreement between an employee and employer, chief, or boss, is not the desired outcome from that word “reasonable”.

Finally, leave that point there; the Māori Party supports this bill at its first reading, and looks forward to seeing the kinds of submissions that come to select committee. When that has been done, the Māori Party will examine the extent of the reports made and then make a determination. On that note, greetings to us all.]

Anybody who is listening on their crystal sets at home will believe, after listening to some of the members of the Labour Party, that the sky is going to fall in, that it is the end of the world in terms of workers’ rights, and that all this sort of—

H V Ross Robertson: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The member has been here for some time now, and I refer him to Speakers’ ruling 48/3, which refers to addressing people who are outside the House or radio listeners. The member referred to transistor radios. I suggest—

💬 Hon Simon Power: He said crystal sets.

H V Ross Robertson: I am sorry. He referred to crystal sets, which is much the same thing. He should be addressing the House and not those who are listening on crystal sets outside the House. He has been here a long time and he should know better.

I apologise for that—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy): No, I will make a ruling.

—gross misdemeanour—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy): The member will be seated. Speaker’s ruling 48/3 states that the “blatant talking to people outside the House” is not in order. I think that is the measure of a certain type of behaviour that I do not believe the member crossed, but I caution him not to cross it.

Well, I will take my apology back and save it for another day. It is good to see that Ross Robertson is on the job. It is really good to see him on the job. He is like one of those delegates in one of the businesses that the Labour Party mentioned earlier on. He is fastidious. He is on the verge of being—oh, I will not say it. He is like a little Rottweiler, making sure that everybody has what the old national award said that he or she is entitled to. This is what the Labour members’ argument is all about. It is as prescriptive as the Country Women’s Institute’s recipe book of 1951. And, I must add, there is nothing wrong with that recipe book; I have used it myself on a couple of occasions.

The old law that Sue Moroney dined out on for a number of years was far too prescriptive. The amendment that my colleague the Minister of Labour is moving tonight is about being flexible. It is about good faith. It is about protecting the rights of both employers and employees. You know, we would not get productivity going at the rate of knots in this country, when we have climbed out of the mess we were in, if it were left up to members on that side of the House.

What are we talking about here? All we are talking about is being able to ask workers when they would like their lunch break, when they would like their smoko break for the morning period, and when they would like to have their smoko break in the afternoon. What Labour members do not realise is that workers can actually think for themselves. They can sit down with the boss without the unions, and without having the union clip the tickets as they go along and pay their union fees. I know that that is what happens, because I have been there. I have been there, and some of the worst employers, might I add, were union officers. The worst employers, whom they rail against, were the likes of the Northern Hotel Workers’ Union.

💬 Sue Moroney: It was only you, Tau. It wasn’t everyone else; it was only you.

I was a member of the Northern Clerical Workers Union, which was a very, very fine outfit.

💬 Hon Member: We’re a broad church.

We are a broad church. But is it not great to hear the old Fabian Society ramp up the old cloth cap arguments that we had in the 1970s? I have news for the Labour Party. I have news for the Labour Party, and it is all bad. The days of those battles have gone, the winning and losing of those battles has gone—[Interruption]—and, as my learned colleagues say, the wall has come down. We now live in a more peaceful society. We now live in a society where we can be flexible, where we can say to each other: “Excuse me, Mr Boss-man, I would like my 10 minutes now.”, rather than being constrained by the Fabian Society, whose members tell me that at 10 o’clock in the morning I am to have my smoko break, and at 12.30 I am supposed to have my lunch break.

This is the 21st century; these are not the days of Blackball, as my colleague from the Māori Party said. These days are not those days. We have moved on. We are a better place. We are a more flexible place. There is nothing wrong with workers making decisions for themselves.

I rise to speak against the Employment Relations (Rest Breaks and Meal Breaks) Amendment Bill, and I hope to address some of the points of the bill, unlike the previous speaker, Tau Henare. Unashamedly, I stand here to say that I support workers’ rights at work. I support their rights to have a fair rate of pay, to be safe and healthy, to work a reasonable number of hours, to have a holiday from time to time, and, to have—yes—breaks during the working day.

Meal and refreshment breaks are a right and most New Zealanders would consider them a right. That has been the case for a long time. People will say that the law provides for them to have a rest break, a lunch break, or whatever, and currently it does—that is right. But for a significant period of time after the National Government’s Employment Contracts Act dismantled our awards system, workers had no legal right to meal and rest breaks other than what was negotiated in contracts and what was provided for in health and safety provisions. Despite the fact that New Zealanders think we all have the right to a morning tea break, a lunch break, and an afternoon tea break, or whatever—which we have, thanks to the previous Labour Government—there was a period when people did not have that right, and we are heading back there right now.

I think that the bill is very short-sighted. I have seen no evidence provided for the need for it. As Trevor Mallard indicated, the Minister of Labour introduced it as a matter of great urgency then left it languishing. There has been no consultation with anybody since, and no examples have been provided as to why we need it. But this bill will mean that certain workers—the most vulnerable workers, certainly—will miss out on having breaks when they need them.

Who is at risk? It is the young workers, migrant workers, and workers for whom English is a second language, for starters. The Service and Food Workers Union said that one of the most common queries it received leading up to this legislation was about workers’ rights to have a break, to have a cup of tea, to have something to eat. Anywhere, in any of the service industries, there is that tension—whether it be a service station, a retail outlet, a cafe, or a restaurant. Certainly, in my experience in the retail industry, that was the case. People were pressured not to have breaks. People worked through the day and did not have breaks.

I remind members across the House that they voted for the Employment Relations (Breaks, Infant Feeding and Other Matters) Amendment Act, which this bill amends—they supported it. I do not know what has happened in the meantime. Trevor Mallard quoted the Minister of Labour. She said that it was important for workers to have breaks for health and safety reasons, and for socialising between employees, which produces happy and productive workplaces—for all of those good reasons. Well, those reasons still exist. I will reiterate them.

Sue Moroney quite rightly pointed out a fundamental reason, which is health and safety. But there are other reasons. The breaks are there so that workers can refresh themselves, and so that they can balance some of their other responsibilities. Most people need to be able to ring the kids, pop out to the shops, or post some letters—things like that. That is the nature of working life nowadays, with, often, two adults in the family working.

The current provisions are flexible. I do not think anybody across the House has even looked at the Act, from the sound of the contributions so far. It is an absolute disgrace that this bill was introduced less than a year after the Act came into force, without any real analysis of how it was working. What is the reason? Is it another example of what the Prime Minister said in his speech at the opening of this year’s session about looking at the costs that labour rights were imposing on employers? He meant that as a result of those costs, jobs were not being created. If we have the flexibility not to have any rights at work, will that create more jobs and impose fewer costs? In modern, productive employment relations people’s rights at work need to be protected. This Government has already taken quite a substantial list of rights off people.

I note that in times of high unemployment, something which this country is currently facing, the right to negotiate one’s meal breaks on this level playing field—this magical level playing field—is even more difficult. When someone is part of a group that has rates of unemployment of up to 30 percent, like young Māori men, and that person finally gets a job, is he going to feel that he has the right to negotiate with the boss on the breaks that he wants? Frankly, I think he will be taking the job on the employer’s terms.

Some of the language and the concepts in this bill are very vague. Timing is to be at the discretion of the employer, subject to the requirement of reasonableness; I would like somebody across the House to tell me what that might mean. Or how about the compensatory measures? There is no objective manner of measuring their adequacy in particular cases, which will lead to the opportunity for greater disagreement between employers and employees. Again, that will not be particularly productive, and productivity is something that, supposedly, this Government is very much committed to, although we have not seen a lot of evidence of that.

What really annoys me about this bill is that it is quite sneaky. The language dresses it up to say that the Government is maintaining workers’ rights to have rest breaks and meal breaks—it will retain them—but, essentially, all of the rights are put in the hands of the employer. All of it, ultimately, is at the discretion of the employer. The Minister can shake her head, but she might want to refresh herself about what the bill actually says. With this magical level playing field, if there is actually negotiation and an agreement cannot be reached, who ultimately gets to decide? The employer gets to decide. The employer sets any requirements as to the length of the break or how the break is actually taken. All of that is in the bill. So, ultimately, the right will lie with the employer. That is what the Government is proposing here. I think that will lead to greater uncertainty, and to greater disputation in some workplaces. But, most worrying, I think it will revert us to the situation prior to the current Act coming to this House, when the reality for many workers was that they did not get a break. Maybe they got a break sometimes, but often they did not. They did not get the breaks that people felt were the normal breaks that New Zealand workers were entitled to by law. The reality was quite different to the law.

That is what I think is very sad about what is being proposed in this bill. For some reason that has not been clearly articulated, we are potentially destroying legislation that had been in place for less than 12 months when the Minister of Labour, in great urgency, put this bill into the House, only to leave it languishing there for a number of months and doing nothing further on it. I ask members opposite to think about what they are trying to achieve with this bill. Again, I want the Minister to stand up to take a call and tell us about what the explanatory note refers to as “a reasonable opportunity for rest and refreshment”. Who will decide that? Who will decide what restrictions are reasonable and necessary? Who will say what these compensatory measures will look like? Will it be acceptable for someone to agree that he or she will not have any breaks for a period of 3 weeks, and then will have a whole day off? Is that a fair measure? How good is that for health and safety?

Let me finish by giving an example of the health and safety issues that Sue Moroney raised earlier. This example was raised in a submission on the bill that became the current Act. It was a quite substantial submission from the Council of Trade Unions. It talked about rest breaks being recognised as having a role in ensuring worker productivity. Research undertaken in a car plant in Swansea over a 3-year period found that the risk of accidents during the last half-hour of a 2-hour period was double that for the first half-hour. The suggestion was that more frequent breaks could reduce accidents. It was concluded that increasing the frequency of rest breaks for workers who operate machinery could substantially reduce industrial accidents, and that frequent work breaks—it gave the example of 10 minutes every hour—could actually improve work performance. If the Government had looked at some of the research, instead of bringing into the House the hasty response that is this bill, we might be in a different place. Thank you.

I have the great privilege to have been elected to represent the Tāmaki electorate in this House. In that electorate there are streets such as Morrin Road, Lunn Avenue, and Apirana Avenue. Those are streets that the previous Labour speaker, Carol Beaumont, would never have heard of and would never have visited. They are streets that are full of small businesses, small industries, and employers with two or three employees working together to be productive. They are full of people who are prepared to put up their capital, take a risk, and use their entrepreneurial spirit and initiative to create a business and create work for two, three, or four other people. I reflect on a conversation that I had in one of those streets just the other day. I was talking to a gentleman who had set up a business and employed one person. He had employed that person as a young lad 15 years ago. He taught him the business, taught him the trade, and can now trust that young man to look after the business when he is away. Neither the employer nor the employee needs Labour members in this House or in legislation telling them how to conduct their relationship. That is what Labour seems so determined to do.

It is time that Labour began to understand that healthy employment relationships are not based on its rules, its domination of union secretaries, or its laws passed in this House. They are based on normal human beings establishing decent relationships between themselves. It is time that the “hate the boss” mentality was removed from this country. Without people who are prepared to risk their capital and back their entrepreneurial spirit, there will be no jobs for anybody else. The Labour members gave their speeches, but they did not really engage in debate with this side of the House. Their speeches were clearly directed at their former colleagues the trade union secretaries, one or two of whom may have been listening, with no relevance at all to where this country is at and what the average New Zealander is thinking.

The purpose of this bill is very simple. Firstly, it acknowledges the importance of relationships between employer and employee, and acknowledges that that relationship is best established at the local workplace level. It is not best established by being legislated for in this House, by having union officials sticking their noses in, or by taking away the freedom of men and women to work together to produce goods, to generate income, and to get on with life. I very strongly commend the Employment Relations (Rest Breaks and Meal Breaks) Amendment Bill to the House, and I look forward to engaging with Opposition members at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. Thank you.

That was a bit of a tirade by the previous speaker, Allan Peachey. It reminded me a lot of Bill Birch. It sounded like Bill Birch was back with his speech on the Employment Contracts Act, saying we should bring it back. My goodness me! When the Minister of Labour, the Hon Kate Wilkinson, gets to speak again some time in the future, I would like to know whether she agrees with what that member just said. If so, I think we all need to be quite worried. I might get Allan Peachey’s Hansard and send it off to all the unions. I am told that that Minister meets regularly with the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions, and I say good on her; I am not criticising her for that. I will send off the Hansard where Allan Peachey says all of those things about trade union secretaries and interfering union officials. I thought that the National Party had moved on, I really did. Even though I do not have high expectations of the National Party, I thought that we had moved on from that kind of rhetoric.

Unfortunately, the Employment Relations (Rest Breaks and Meal Breaks) Amendment Bill is the second piece of legislation that this Minister of Labour has brought into the House that takes away workers’ rights. I notice that she told a recent industrial relations conference that 2010 will be the “Get Stuff Done Year” for her labour portfolio.

💬 Sue Moroney: The “Get Stuffed Year”.

The “Get Stuffed Year for Workers”. I wonder if this is what she is talking about. Is taking away workers’ rights getting stuff done? This is a very hastily and poorly drafted bill. It was rushed into the House late last year in a panic because the Minister thought that the air traffic controllers were getting out of control. It was rushed into the House without consultation or giving notice to anyone, including the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions. John Key went along to the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions conference the week before—

💬 Hon Steve Chadwick: He smiled and waved.

He smiled and waved, yet he never said a word about this legislation, which was introduced the following week. What has been interesting about the speeches from the opposite side is that National supported the Employment Relations (Breaks, Infant Feeding and Other Matters) Amendment Bill when it was introduced by Labour. It made a real virtue out of it. I remember that Minister, who was then an Opposition member, making a real fuss, and making a virtue out of doing so. I have to admit that it was a surprise to us at the time, because it is the only piece of workers’ rights legislation that improves things for workers that the National Party has supported in 20 years. It was worth celebrating at the time, but the speeches that we have heard from members opposite tonight make us wonder if they are in denial. They make us wonder if it was an election ploy to try to prove to workers that National was not as scary as they believed.

The Minister was part of the select committee during the consideration of that original bill. She, along with me and many others, heard the submissions on Labour’s bill.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.