Employment Relations (Probationary Period Repeal) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Employment Relations (Probationary Period Repeal) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I say to my parliamentary colleagues that I seek their support for people who are being exploited in the workplace due to the National Government’s Employment Relations Amendment Act 2008.

I need to acknowledge many people. Let me start with Charles Chauvel and the important role he has played in drafting this bill. Malo ‘aupito my Tahitian brother Charles Chauvel. Secondly, I acknowledge our Labour team, who worked tirelessly in fighting for the rights of wage and salary earners. I particularly acknowledge our spokesperson on labour relations, the Hon Trevor Mallard, and our associate spokespersons on labour relations, Darien Fenton and Carol Beaumont. Thirdly, I acknowledge the ongoing work undertaken by all union members in their fight to protect the rights of workers and ensure that fairness is achieved and maintained in the workplace.

My bill seeks to repeal the 90-day trial period that the National Government introduced for new workers and businesses that employ fewer than 20 people. My bill will restore the relevant provisions of the Employment Relations Act to the pre-2008 application. We were vehemently opposed to the 90-day fire-at-will bill because it was an attack on workers’ rights, on fairness, and on decency, and it was an unnecessary move by the National Government. It has hindered rather than helped employment during the recession, and we are of the strong belief that it must be repealed as soon as possible before more damage is done.

With that in mind, what has caused outrage from us on this side of the House and from numerous members of the public is the Government’s recent announcements, one week after my bill was drawn from the ballot, that it would be looking to extend the provisions of its Act to apply to all workplaces of all sizes. This will be negative for all wage and salary earners, including those who change jobs.

Every year 700,000 Kiwis start a new job. That will be 700,000 workers whose employers can sack them without a reason and without a right of redress. There are no two ways about it. The 90-day trial legislation should not be extended; it should be done away with entirely. The 90-day fire-at-will bill that the National Government introduced in 2008 can only be described in the following four ways: exploitation of marginalised New Zealanders; arrogance towards ordinary working Kiwis; a corporate favour from that Government to its business mates; and disregard for fairness and the fundamental rights of wage and salary earners.

What needs to be highlighted is that prior to the Government’s 90-day fire-at-will bill trial periods were not unknown in employment contracts. Trial periods were about fair appraisals of a new employee’s capability to do the job. For employers, they mitigated some of the risks of employing new people, but the key element of those trial periods was fairness. Employees had a right to a fair appraisal. If they were dismissed, they had a right to know why. They also had the right to appeal the decision if they felt they were being unfairly dismissed. That was the situation before the National Government’s changes.

What happened next is that the Government decided that legislation for fair dismissal was not enough. It decided to legislate for unfair dismissal. This move was seen as so important to the National Government that it included it in its first 100 days of action programme. In hindsight, the National Government had no qualms about demonstrating its right-wing agenda from the get-go. By introducing the 90-day trial period, it put all the power in the hands of the employers and took away employees’ rights to appeal. It was nothing short of an attack on fairness, decency, and workers’ rights.

The National Government has taken the position that the 90-day legislation has been a boost for people on the margins of the workforce who need an employer to give them a chance in a new job. The National Government has tried to tell New Zealanders that the 90-day legislation encourages small businesses to give a prospective employee a go without fear of costly or protracted legal proceedings if the relationship does not work out. The National Government has touted this legislation as being a success, but let us look at the unemployment rates and gauge for ourselves how much of a success this legislation has been.

When the National Government took office in 2008 the unemployment rate for Māori was 8.3 percent. It is now 13.6 percent. When the National Government took office in 2008 the unemployment rate for Pasifika was 7.4 percent. It is now 13.3 percent. When the National Government took office in 2008 the unemployment rate for young people aged 15 to 19 was 17.9 percent. It is now 25.2 percent. The unemployment rate for 20 to 24-year-olds was 7.3 percent, and it is now 11.4 percent. The overall unemployment rate when National took office was 4.4 percent, and it is now 6.6 percent.

How can members of the National Government stand up in this Parliament and tell us and the rest of New Zealand that the 90-day bill has been a success? How can members of the National Government stand up in this Parliament and suggest that the provisions of its Act be extended even further? It has done nothing to alleviate the poverty imposed on an increasing number of New Zealand families. The provisions of the 90-day bill serve only to deny New Zealanders starting out in new jobs the dignity they deserve and the employment rights they should be automatically entitled to in this country.

Last month the Minister for Social Development and Employment cited a Department of Labour report on the 90-day trial period scheme as apparent proof that the original legislation was working as intended, but it noted that many employees hired under the scheme felt vulnerable to unfair treatment and job loss. Nearly a quarter of the workers employed under the scheme were sacked. Is this what the Government intended when it implemented the scheme? The report found some instances where trial periods appeared to have been misused by employers. Is this what the Government intended when it implemented the scheme? The report notes that it cannot be stated categorically that the scheme has created any extra job opportunities. So what does the Government do? It pushes on with the expansion of the scheme, despite the lack of any clear evidence that it is creating new jobs.

We know that the trial period scheme has been abused by some employers. There are many examples of that, including one recently in the Dominion Post about a woman named Alison Murray. We have been told time and time again by this Government that the 90-day trial is about giving people a chance, particularly those who are disadvantaged in the labour market. This includes young people, Māori and Pasifika, migrants, and people with disabilities or mental illness. This Government gives them chances by taking away their right to a fair go. The Government told us it would increase job opportunities for the most marginalised working-age New Zealanders. I ask this Government today where those job opportunities are. I cannot find them, the Department of Labour cannot find them, and the young, Māori, Pasifika, migrant, and disabled job seekers cannot find them either.

It is insulting that the National Government would patronise New Zealanders in search of employment by stating over and over again that the legislation is there to help them. The only people who are benefiting from the 90-day fire-at-will legislation are the National Party’s mates who own businesses and want to employ workers but do not want to have to adhere to the legislation.

Our workers are our greatest asset as a country. They deserve respect and job security. They do not deserve this prolonged attack on workers’ rights by the National Government. I ask all my parliamentary colleagues tonight to support my bill, which will see the National Government’s 90-day fire-at-will legislation repealed. Thank you.

We just heard from Labour about the Employment Relations (Probationary Period Repeal) Amendment Bill. Labour’s one reason for bringing this bill before this Parliament is unemployment rates. Unemployment rates are the responsibility of the previous Labour Government. That Labour Government put New Zealand into recession before the rest of the world. It destroyed this economy through its 9 years of mismanagement. If members want to talk to the people out there who do not have a job, they can tell them about what Labour did for 9 years that put them in that position. The previous Government did that. It destroyed this economy in our best times, it created a recession before the rest of the world, and it created the unemployment that New Zealanders live with. The National Government has been delivering jobs and trying to get this country out of recession. There would be a lot more unemployment if we had not done what we did in creating legislation like the 90-day bill.

Members of the previous Government want to go back to the days of the past, when they had the glory. Well, they did not have the glory, they did not use it properly, and the people of New Zealand suffer now because of what the previous Government put in place. The public of New Zealand made the choice in the last election, and that choice cannot be reversed through a member’s bill here tonight. It is a sad indictment of Labour that it has to use the member’s bill process to go back to the past, when it could be looking forward and looking to help New Zealanders. But, no, it wants to go back to the past and resurrect what it had before, under some kind of image of a past, fleeting party, rather than look forward and deliver what New Zealanders want and deliver the future they want. New Zealanders want that future.

💬 Kelvin Davis: Why do you hate New Zealanders so much?

Labour members ask that, but they put this country in recession. Labour did it. Who was in Government when New Zealand went into recession? It was Labour. Was the rest of the world in recession then? No. The Labour Government put New Zealand into recession; that is where we got the unemployment from. The one reason Labour members are using for this bill—unemployment rates—is actually the one thing that Labour left as its legacy for the New Zealand economy. Labour left us with unemployment; we had to deal with it. Labour created the unemployment, and it cannot take this away with a member’s bill tonight. That is the reality of the situation and what this country has faced.

When we look at what we need to do as a forward-thinking, progressive Government, we see that we want to create an environment where people get the chance, the opportunity, and the ability to prove themselves. What more do young people want and what more do migrant communities want than to prove themselves and to get a step in the door? They want to be able to walk into those jobs and show that they can deliver the services where there may have been barriers put up against them in the past. That is what the 90-day bill did; it gave the opportunity for New Zealanders to get that first job. It gave the people whom Labour members talk about as being the most marginalised—the young, and those who do not have the experience—the chance to show their potential, prove their worth, and not have to go through the systems and structures that Labour deems to be appropriate.

That party over there wants to have its systems, because it believes that people are automatically entitled to have them. Those were the words of the previous speaker, Carmel Sepuloni—“automatically entitled” to having such things. Labour members look upon it as if there is an automatic entitlement, and as if they know what is best for New Zealanders. That is not right—New Zealanders can prove what is best for New Zealanders, and we are giving them that chance to get a job. We do not say who is automatically entitled to anything; we say people should be given the chance and they should prove themselves, make it work, and get the rewards. What more could a human being want than to be given a chance, to be given an opportunity, and to be given the ability to prove himself or herself—not to be seen as automatically entitled to something under some great plan that Labour had 9 years ago?

Labour members bring out the concepts of poverty—all of those great stories of poverty—and say that the 90-day bill created the poverty that many families encounter. That is a load of rubbish. The thing that created the poverty in this country is a Labour Government that wasted 9 years and that took away our best economic times and threw them down the drain. We are not going to do that. We are going to give people the chance, we are going to deliver them the opportunities, and we are going to make it worthwhile for them to take advantage of those opportunities.

This debate goes to the heart of the difference between the National Party and the Labour Party. This is the heart of the difference between a party that cares, that wants to give a future, and that wants to deliver prospects, and a party that thinks it knows best, that wants to tell people what is right, and that does not give anybody a chance. That is the point of difference between the Government and the Opposition. We are here to help to give an opportunity; Labour is there to take and direct. That is the whole political difference that this House represents, and this is a House that the public has made a decision on in terms of what it wants to see. The public wants to see opportunity, they want to give people a chance, and they want to see a 90-day bill. We campaigned on one, the public voted for it, and tonight we will see the public vote, through the parties in this House, to tell the Labour Party again—it took Labour 2 years to get the message, but it will get the message again tonight—that the public do not want to be told what they have to do; they actually want to be given the opportunity to prove themselves. That is the prime lesson that Labour should have learnt at the last election—which it did not—and now it is trying to reinvent the wheel and bring back things from the past and say it had the glory and the answers. But it does not, because Labour created the problems that led to the situation we are in today.

As we can see, National will not be supporting this legislation, because this bill is a movement back to the past. It does not reflect the energy and commitment of this Government. It does not reflect the ability and desire of New Zealanders, and it does not reflect what is in the modern world in terms of the way that employment relations are structured. If we look at most OECD countries, we see that they have longer probationary periods than this.

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: The right to be dismissed at will.

I say to Mr Cunliffe that they have longer probationary periods. I ask Mr Cunliffe what he is saying.

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: The right to be extorted by the unscrupulous.

Oh, let us put those lines on a billboard! It is no wonder that the member will never get the votes of middle New Zealand. Those are the longest words—

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: Back to Dickens!

Oh, Charles Dickens—now we are getting the academic nature of the member coming out. That is why he will never be a success in New Zealand politics—he will never be Prime Minister. He will lead the Labour Party after the next election, but he will never be a Prime Minister, because he cannot relate to people. People do not want to hear about Charles Dickens; we have moved on from those days. The days of Charles Dickens were when the Labour Party was the great instructor of what could be done. We have moved on. We want to give people the chance; we do not want to put them in forced labour as the Labour Party would, when Charles Dickens was in control. No, National believes in our people, we believe in their future, and we want to give them—

💬 Carmel Sepuloni: What is he talking about? How did Charles Dickens come into this argument?

That is the member promoting the bill. What is she talking about? She has come into this House promoting a bill—

💬 Hon Pansy Wong: It must be Andrew Little.

Yes, it must be Andrew Little texting those members. In reality, this is not a time to go back to the past; this is a time when we can build a future. One of the big parts of building that future was the 90-day bill. It has been shown to be successful. It has given people an opportunity. It is something that we should enhance and deliver upon, not take back. Why would another political party want to hold New Zealanders back by saying that it could determine the rules? We do not think it is appropriate to hold our people back. We think that there is a future for our people, and that future will allow people to prove themselves and to give that opportunity so that they can get a job and then take their lives forward in a constructive way, rather than being told that this is what they are automatically, or not automatically, entitled to, as the case may be under Labour.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker): Before I call the next speaker, I say that the next speeches from here on will be 5 minutes’ duration. I will give a bell at the 4-minute mark.

I think it is fair to say that Mr Macindoe started off in a fairly spirited way, but the further away he got from lunchtime the less spirited he was.

💬 Hon Tau Henare: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. When we are talking about people in the House, we have to use their correct names.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker): I must admit that I was a bit confused. I think the member said “Mr Macindoe”, when the previous speaker was Mr Bennett. I was trying to figure it out myself. The Hon Tau Henare makes a point, and I am sure we will get this corrected—[Interruption] When the Speaker is speaking, we will not have a babble—

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: Or a rabble.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker): Or a rabble. If there is one more comment, I should make members stay here until midnight as a suitable punishment, rather than sending them home early.

I apologise to the members for Hamilton; they are all forgettable these days. This bill is about people having the right to have a reason when they get the sack as to why they got the sack. That is what it is about. It is pretty simple: one should be allowed to have a reason—

💬 Hon Tau Henare: They do.

No, no; the member should not believe the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister overturned the Acts Interpretation Act. It is very, very clear in New Zealand law that the specific overrides the general. Under the 90-day legislation people are specifically taken out of the requirement for reasons to be given, and any general good-faith arrangement cannot override that. One does not have to be a very good lawyer to work that out. I would have thought a briefing to a Prime Minister would work that out. The facts are very, very clear: the 90-day legislation is designed so employers can fire without giving a reason. Most Kiwis do not think that is fair. Most Kiwis think that if one is getting the sack, it does not matter if that person has been employed for 5 minutes, 89 days, or 50 years, that person should be allowed to have a reason for getting the sack. This legislation stops that occurring.

This is part of a general package. Some of my colleagues say that there is no plan, but I actually disagree. There may be no plan to catch up with Australia on wages and salaries—I agree with that—but there is a plan: to drive down wages and salaries in New Zealand. This is part of that plan. This is part of the plan to deskill our economy and to have a lower-wage economy. That is something National has always believed in. It does not care about lower incomes. I apologise to the member Tim Macindoe. Getting him mixed up with the member David Bennett is a bit rough. There are some other arrangements. This is clearly very bad for vulnerable people.

Tau Henare has been one of this bill’s biggest supporters, but over the last 24 hours we have seen his innovative solution to low incomes for Māori. What is it? That they should shack up with rich Pākehā. That is what he said: if Māori do not have enough money, they should find rich honkies and live with them. That is the Henare approach to getting Māori incomes higher in New Zealand. He does not want them to have jobs and he does not think people should earn their money; he thinks poor Māori should find rich honkies and shack up with them.

💬 Hon Tau Henare: Why not?

If that is National’s approach to improving Māori skills and Māori unemployment these days, I think it is very, very sad.

I must say that National is consistent. It is consistent with this legislation, which undervalues people who earn salaries and wages. It undervalues skills, it discourages skills, and it discourages capital investment. It accelerates the approach to the bottom, which is what National wants. It wants us to have a lower-skilled economy, and it does not care about the rights that it is taking away from people as that occurs. National quite likes this. It has been going very well from its perspective. National has depressed wages—it has been successful from its point of view—and stopped people going to good jobs. That is the approach that National wants, and we are absolutely opposed to it.

I say to my colleague Mr Trevor Mallard that somebody had to help the Europeans out, to add a bit of colour to the race. Instead of being colonised, we did the colonising.

I am happy to join the debate. Forty-five smoke-free days ago I had what they call a cardiac event. While I was having this cardiac event, I was wondering to myself whether, if I was looking for a job under the Labour regime and I had had a heart attack—or a cardiac event, as they are wont to call it these days—I would have been successful. No. Under the Labour regime, not one employer would have given me a trial. Not one employer would have given me a go. Do members know why? It is not because I could not do the job, because I could not learn the job, because I would be a health risk, or because I might fall down dead. It would have been because of the risk to the employer of something going wrong—one of the things I have just mentioned—or something happening. The employer would have worn it.

It is not the job of the employer to make workers drink after leading them to the pond; it is for the employer to make sure that the risks are spread evenly, and actually giving the person an opportunity to show his or her wares is the best thing. It is not up to the employer to pay for the worker’s health risks after the worker has had a cardiac event. It is certainly not the employer’s job to risk the consequences of having the worker drop dead on the job after he or she has had a cardiac event away from the employment.

Trial periods have been around for donkey’s years. Even in my time there was the national awards system. Most of those members across the way would have had their union experience under the national awards system. They had trial periods, some of 2 months, some of 3 months, and some in the national awards system had a 6-month trial system, where the employer could trial a person and that person was given 6 months to learn the ropes of the job. The employee could bail out at any time that he or she wanted to.

Trial periods are good things. Trial periods spread the risk right across the board. If I think about the cardiac event—

💬 Dr Rajen Prasad: Probation’s not the problem.

Well, what is the problem? Oh, I know what the problem really is. It is that the Labour Party does not have a single thing to go to war on.

💬 Darien Fenton: We have now.

Who gives a hoot about what those members have now? It is just like what I said in the House yesterday to the Hon Maryan Street—two words—“Who cares?”. I tell members what, the worker who is looking for a job and who wants the opportunity to show his or her wares does not care what the Labour Party is on about. Those workers care about having the opportunity. Once Carmel Sepuloni finds her way around the new metropolis of Waitakere, she will understand that the young workers out there—the workers whom she thinks she represents; Māori, Pasifika, and all the other people—will love this, because they will be able to have the opportunity to show their wares.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I have noticed that the Hon Pete Hodgson is in the House without a tie. I raise this point not to castigate the honourable member. If I could just be heard on this—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I thank the member. The member is correct. I say to the member that standard business attire is what is required, which includes a tie.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I had not actually finished my point of order, I—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I knew what the—

With respect, Mr Deputy Speaker, you do not. I thought that Mr Hodgson may in fact be testing the boundaries, because I have consulted the Speakers’ Rulings and indeed, as you say, Mr Deputy Speaker, Speaker’s ruling 16/8 states that “The Speaker will take issue with any member who is not dressed in appropriate business attire,”. I think there is actually a very good case to be made that these silly things that men are required to wear traditionally are no more. I say that because my legal colleagues at large law firms now routinely do not wear them—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I thank the member for that very enlightening example of what ties are about, but I have ruled. The member has brought the issue to my attention; I thank him for that. We will move on with the debate.

Mr Garrett has a point. We should be moving to a broader dress code. Perhaps, as a transition, we could have a 90-day probationary period where people wear ties, and then after that they can go without ties. In reply to Tau Henare’s comments, I say that the question is not whether we have trial periods or probationary periods; it is a question of what type we have. The type that Tau Henare referred to in the past was the type—

💬 Hon Tau Henare: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. We have just come out of Māori Language Week, and I would not mind if my name was pronounced Tau “Hen-a-re”, not “Hen-ah-ree”.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you for that. I ask members, when referring to other members, to try to get the correct pronunciation.

My point was that Tau Henare’s position was similar to what the Greens and Labour have been arguing. In the past there have been—and even currently there are—some probationary periods that are fair ones, where after a certain period an employee can transfer to permanent employment. If that employee is not transferred, there are appeal procedures and the unions can be involved, etc., as they were in the days past that Tau Henare referred to.

What are the Government’s arguments in favour of keeping this 90-day period? The first is that somehow more people are hired, when in fact the research on the legislation since its introduction, provided by the Department of Labour, says that it could not be stated categorically that trial periods had created extra job opportunities. That is common sense, really, because employers hire according to need; they do not go down the track of scratching their heads for 10 minutes about the quality of employees.

Secondly, the Government argues that more young people will get jobs in this way too. It is true that young people often have fewer CVs and find it more difficult in the job market. David Bennett went on about the fact that that was what the bill was all about, and that the present legislation was giving workers a chance. In fact, the situation with fair probationary periods that exists now in certain industries, and that existed in the past before the current legislation came in, does allow young people to have a go. In fact, when there is an unfair probationary period where the employer has the arbitrary right to fire at any time without any reason, there is a charter for bullying, in effect. The employer does not need to provide any care for employees, because employees can be sent down the road at any stage. Carmel Sepuloni mentioned the case in the Dominion Post of Alison Murray, who got a job as an art valuer for Dunbar Sloane. She was not even given a desk to work at, and later on was just fired arbitrarily.

This legislation is also a charter for a greater level of sexual harassment in the workforce, if the employer has arbitrary power over a new worker for 90 days. It is also a charter for dividing the workforce between those who are established and perhaps in the union, and new employees who will not dare to join the union, because a lot of employers are anti-union and would sack the person if they showed a great interest in joining the union. So the legislation will divide the workforce, and that is bad for morale. It is much better to have a united workforce. In fact, a unionised workforce, in my experience, is the most confident and productive workforce, particularly if it has a good relationship with its employer.

Kate Wilkinson, the Minister of Labour, said not to worry about all that, because employers would act in good faith. Well, we just cannot operate on that basis, and we have plenty of examples where employers have not acted in good faith in that respect. If we generalise the 90-day period, as the Government says it is intending to do, that will have a lot of ramifications for the workforce. It will make workers much more reluctant to shift jobs because they will not be certain that they will not be sacked in the first 90 days. Migrants will be more reluctant to come to this country, because they could come here and then their jobs could go down the drain overnight. So I think this bill should be passed because it will reverse a very bad piece of legislation from the National Government.

The ACT Party has a particular interest in the Employment Relations (Probationary Period Repeal) Amendment Bill, as, indeed, I have personally. Not only was the Employment Relations Amendment Bill 2008 one of the first things we considered when I came into the House, but we managed to put forward a Supplementary Order Paper to enact the legislation a month early. So I followed the issue with great interest.

Back in December 2008 it was very interesting to hear the hyperbole that I have now learnt is typical of the Greens: the sky is always falling in, the world is going to end tomorrow, and global warming is going to get out of hand uncontrollably by next Thursday. But on this occasion we heard the hyperbole from Labour. We heard about the roll of shame. I will allow a little pause, because when Carmel Sepuloni began her impassioned speech I interjected on her a couple of times and asked her to read out the roll of shame. I very much doubt that she did not hear me. Is she not familiar with the roll of shame? Members will recall that when the matter was being discussed back in December we heard about a roll of shame. It was going to be a regularly updated list of bad employers who employed people, sacked them after a week, hired others, and then sacked them. I listened with great interest, because I could not actually believe that the roll of shame would ever contain any names.

So in the last year or so, when the matter of employment law has come up in the House in a number of contexts, I have interjected across the House and asked for the roll of shame to be read. When I have done that, Labour members have always managed to find their papers very interesting. So the roll of shame, I tell Ms Sepuloni, is the list of bad employers who constantly sack people. I ask whether she would now like to read out that roll of shame.

💬 Carmel Sepuloni: I started it: David Garrett—

That is it, is it?

💬 Carmel Sepuloni: —John Key. I can keep going; I have about 60 of them—

Neither of us are employers, so that is interesting. The roll of shame, as I thought, is empty. There are no names on it, because in the real world employers have better things to do. They have better things to do than go through a lengthy process of hiring, training, and getting people acculturated into their workforce. They do not want to be sacking people all the time.

It is very interesting that we heard from members on that side of the Chamber that this bill was designed to “support National’s mates”—I think they said “rich mates” as well—which completely overlooks the fact that the majority of employees in this country are employed by small and medium sized businesses. Eighty percent of them are employed by small and medium sized businesses. So it is a very interesting but sad admission that those employers, those small and medium sized tradesmen and tradeswomen, are all considered to be National’s mates.

The reality is that the roll of shame has no names on it. Labour managed to find a few bedraggled employees—sorry, I mean workers, in Labour “union speak”—but I noticed that the chaps and “chap-esses” down at my local, who are actually mostly Labour voters, said that they would not employ those employees either. Out in the real world, many people do not even have written employment contracts; they just get on with it. We heard Ms Sepuloni and others say that there are many examples of employment trial periods being misused. Well, in this House the Hon Ruth Dyson regularly comes in and reads out quite heart-rending and upsetting examples—who knows whether they are real—of people who have allegedly suffered from having their home help taken off them, etc. So I would have thought that if a large number, or even a small number, of workers have truly been treated badly by employers, who should be on the roll of shame, then we would hear about it. But we have not. That is because out in the real world people have better things to do.

I close by saying that I was disappointed when Mrs Turia told me just a moment ago that she was unable to support the bill because one of the selling points was that it was intended to get more Māori and Pacific Island people into the workforce and apparently that has not happened. That is very unfortunate.

Again, it was surprising to learn that 90 days is actually a very short trial period and that the UK Labour Government for 15 years or more has had probationary periods of 12 months. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. Firstly, I congratulate Carmel Sepuloni on introducing this Employment Relations (Probationary Period Repeal) Amendment Bill to restore the relevant provisions of the Employment Relations Act 2002 and, in doing so, to overturn the legislative measures that would allow workers to be fired at will in the first 90 days of their employment.

In doing so, I am particularly conscious of the statistics that come across my desk on a regular basis telling me of some 21,000 Māori job seekers and 7,000 Pasifika job seekers. Of that number, roughly a third of them fall into the youth category, so they are under 24 years of age. It is those rangatahi in particular who drive us to support this bill.

We were told, and we have heard it again tonight, that the 90-day scheme would result in employment opportunity for youth to prove themselves—a chance to prove their worth. Well, what happened? What we know too well is that Māori and Pacific youth under 24 are struggling to get into the workplace, and they will be vulnerable to some unscrupulous employers who exploit the subsidy scheme.

The Māori Party voted against the 2008 Employment Relations Amendment Bill, which was passed under urgency and without going through a select committee process. Like other speakers, we want to scrutinise claims that there is evidence that the 90-day scheme has created outcomes that demonstrate employers are giving more opportunities to young people. I agree—I actually do agree—that the majority of employers are unlikely to want a revolving door of employees, but the problem for our young people is that they cannot even get through the door.

I read a disturbing result from a recent study entitled Young(er) People’s Conceptualisations of the World of Work: A Qualitative Study. The sample chosen for the Māori component of the research was drawn from an existing longitudinal study of Māori households called The Best Outcomes for Maori: Te Hoe Nuku Roa. It gave some very clear warnings about the fragile state of many of our young people embarking upon the workforce. The study revealed the tendency of a number of participants to consider themselves solely responsible for their success or failure both in study and in the labour market. In other words, they blame themselves for not being able to sustain long-term, secure employment. In doing so, they seal off their future; believing that their options are limited and that they will not go there again. The cost of failure to the State and to the whānau is huge.

The workplace environment is a more complex world than one which many members of this House would ever have known. Amongst the inevitable challenge of standing up to apply again for job opportunities, recent international studies highlight the fact that the transition from school that young people are experiencing today are increasingly becoming less predictable and more complex than the school-to-work transitions of the past.

But some pervasive issues still impact on the opportunities for young Māori people to succeed in employment options, not the least being the institutionalised racism that exists. The question we have to ask of the Government is how the 90-day probationary period will overcome that which Māori call the brown barrier—a phenomenon of systemic bias against employment and promotion of young Māori in the job market.

It is a core feature of Māori Party employment policy that we support the right to be treated fairly and with dignity in the workplace. We want to do everything we can to enhance the chance of success for our young and for young Pasifika peoples, as well. So we will be supporting this bill at its first reading. Kia ora.

First of all, I congratulate my colleague Carmel Sepuloni on having the Employment Relations (Probationary Period Repeal) Amendment Bill drawn in the ballot. I think it is very timely, given the Prime Minister’s announcement at the National Party conference that the Government will be extending the 90-day trial period to all workers throughout New Zealand. It is interesting to look at the justification he used for that at the National Party conference. The deliberately delayed Department of Labour research report on the current 90-day trial provision was used by the Prime Minister to justify the move to extend it to all wage and salary earners.

First of all, what I will say about that report is that it was extremely unbalanced. As part of that report, 3,532 employers were contacted, but only 13 employees were contacted. How unfair is that? That kind of methodology will not uncover the real impact of the 90-day trial law. But even with that imbalance, the report provided some really interesting evidence—well, a lack of evidence, actually—to back up the Prime Minister’s claim that this provision should be extended to all workplaces. I will address a couple of issues.

My colleague Carmel Sepuloni has addressed the issue of the claim that the provision will provide jobs for disadvantaged people. Well, we know from the report that 72 percent of the people who got jobs under the 90-day trial period were Pākehā. The number who were Māori and Pasifika was very, very small, and employers said that very few of them used the provisions to hire workers whom they may not have hired otherwise. Employers were more focused on hiring the most suitable candidate. The Minister of Labour and the Prime Minister keep saying that the 90-day trial period can be entered into only by written agreement.

I spoke to someone today, and her name is Tyla Howard. She is 24. She got a job in an Auckland laundromat. After some months she was laid off, then she was re-employed a few months later. As is the situation with so many other workers, there was no written agreement—and the report shows that even though the law requires a written agreement, so few employers bother with that—and nothing was said about the 90-day period. In fact, in her case, she should not have been on a 90-day period because she was re-employed. The law states that the employer cannot do that, but she was re-employed under National’s fire-at-will Act. Anyway, she turned up to work one day and was told that she was being let go—do not come Monday. She was being let go, and it was because of the 90-day trial period. Tyla did not even know she was on a trial. She had not heard anything about it. She should not have been on a trial, because the law states that she should not have been, but this law has given employers the impression that they can use the 90-day trial period with impunity—with impunity.

Another worker I heard from in the last 2 days is a woman called Lauretta. She said in her email: “I am one of the people that was on the 90-day trial period. The 90 days came up and I got a phone call from someone ringing up about my job advertised in the paper.” It was advertised in the paper! She said: “I went to my boss and asked him what was going on, as I didn’t even know my job was coming to an end. He told me I didn’t have enough experience, which he knew when he employed me. Now I am unemployed, desperately looking for work.” The Government’s own report, which it delayed quite deliberately until the National Party conference as a means to try to justify extending this provision to all workplaces, shows categorically—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Tell us the company’s name. Did you make it up?

I am happy to provide the evidence. I ask whether the member is saying that my word is not what I am saying in this House.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: I’m saying you should name the company.

I am happy to name the company and I will name the company. I am happy to provide that evidence, and I have many, many more examples, which I am happy to use in the next couple of days.

In summary, National’s own report, exposed by the Department of Labour, shows that employers have been using this law as a means of employing people and avoiding their responsibilities, rather than as a means of creating jobs. The law has not created jobs for disadvantaged workers, and certainly there are many, many instances in that report, if members care to read it, of employers not even following the very, very lightweight requirements that are already in the law—for example, the requirement to have something written down in an agreement.

There is a great scene in the Monty Python movie Life of Brian. It starts—do members remember—with the question: “What have the Romans ever done for us?”. A few things are named—the aqueducts, sanitation, roads, irrigation, medicine, wine, and public baths—but the question is asked: “What have the Romans ever done for us?”. That is pretty much what we have heard from the Labour Opposition members, with all these questions about the Government and whether there is a plan; they cannot see the wood from the trees. The list is so long that I do not have time to go through it. Those members are either asleep at the wheel, or they truly believe there is one big lever that we can pull. In fact they would believe that, because they spent 9 years pulling two large levers: tax and spend.

But we know that there is not a big lever to pull; it is about things like cycleways, oil and gas exploration, lower taxes, increasing free-trade agreements, and it is certainly about moderate changes to our labour laws. One would think that every worker had been chained up and sent to the salt mines, when very moderate changes were announced, such was the over-the-top reaction from our friends on the left.

But amongst the din of disgust there was one voice of left-wing reason. That voice said: “I don’t have huge objections to these changes affecting the fourth week of a holiday, as long as the decision is freely arrived at by the worker and the worker is not pressured into it. If somebody chooses to do that, I am quite relaxed about it.” Who said that? It was the Leader of the Opposition, Phil Goff—a lone voice of reason, while the rest of the Labour Opposition were so happy to jump on the bandwagon and flog what were very moderate proposed changes. They said, when the 90-day legislation came in, that they would name and shame. They have had opportunity after opportunity. Miss Fenton told us terribly sad stories, but not a single workplace has been named by a single member of the Opposition.

I want members of the Opposition to take a call to say why they think so little of the workers of New Zealand, why they cannot be trusted to make up their own minds about trading in the fourth week of their holiday, or why they do not want to give workers a chance—the marginalised workers, the immigrants who are saying “give us a go”—because that is what the flexibility of the 90-day probation period gives us. Better still, why do Labour members not dust off their bus? Do members remember the bus that had “Axe the Tax” written on it—the tax that they would not commit to axing? Why do they not get the bus out, get out their guitars and sing their “Ging Gang Goolie” songs all the way to the vineyards of Marlborough, the electrical companies of Christchurch, the salmon farms of the Mackenzie, and the biotech companies in Dunedin, and say why they are so down on employees? Why will they not give hard-working workers a chance to say “give me a go”? Better still, they could take the bus all the way to Tīwai, to the aluminium smelter, and tell the 725 workers there, who are not members of the union, who contribute hundreds of millions of dollars into the Southland economy, whose workplace health and safety record is as good as it gets in that industry, and whose electricity is almost entirely renewable, why they are so down on employees.

There is a plan. It is about having flexible labour law, it is about less regulation, and it is about enabling employees to enjoy tax cuts that leave 82c in every dollar in the pockets of 73 percent of workers.

💬 Darien Fenton: What’s the plan?

Can members hear them; they are still asking “What’s the plan? Where’s the plan?”. They are too busy yelling, and nobody is listening. It is about those things. It is about lots of little things, and it is definitely about giving employees a chance to be flexible—a chance that is given in 29 out of 30 countries in the OECD, many of which are run by left-wing Governments. I think that is not a bad model to follow.

I want to know what the plan is for young people. What is this Government’s plan to get young people into employment? On this side of the House we know that over 60,000 young people are currently unemployed, but what is the Government going to do about it? Nothing! National members have said absolutely nothing about how they will generate employment opportunities in our communities so that those 60,000-plus young people can get a job and keep a job—that is, real jobs, real wages, and our young people being looked after. That is why I want to speak to this particular bill. If the 90-day probationary period is the solution that the National Government has to get young people into employment, then I can say now, and I am supported by the Māori Party, that it is not working for Māori young people and it is not working for Pacific young people. For the 60,000-plus young people who are currently unemployed, this bill has not made one iota of a difference.

Meanwhile, members on the other side of the House continue to say that this bill will be fantastic because it is a probationary opportunity to give a young person a go. Well, the statistics speak for themselves. This is not about naming and shaming; this is about saying “Look at the statistics; they speak for themselves”. Over 60,000 young people are currently unemployed and they are not helped by the 90-day probationary period bill, so this bill that Carmel Sepuloni has brought forward to get rid of the 90-day probationary period bill signals a clear message. That is why Labour is supporting it. It reaffirms our values that workers should be given a fair go when they are given a job. They should not be able to be fired at will for no reason.

I ask members to put themselves in the shoes of young people getting a job, their first job. They are excited; they are keen to do something—anything. They have an opportunity, they get into the workplace, they get tasks to do and their supervisors say that those are the tasks for the day. The young people do the jobs to the best of their ability but, hello, at the end of the day their supervisors are unhappy. The supervisors have not thought for one minute that they were unclear on the instructions that they gave to such young people. When a supervisor relays information back to the boss, who is worried about only time frames and bottom lines, the next day the young person is called and told not to bother going back because the company has too much work to do. Under the current law, which this Government is promoting as being popular for young people, those young people can be fired without any reason whatsoever, and got rid of.

How would those young people feel? They would feel rejected, dejected, and, most of all, unconfident about their future job prospects. They would have nothing on their CV. Getting released from their first jobs for no reason at all leaves them nothing on their CV, so what are their future job prospects?

One member on the opposite side of the House decided to accuse Carmel Sepuloni of not knowing anything about her electorate. But Carmel knows that in the places where young people work—McDonald’s, Burger King, supermarkets, movie theatres, and such places—they are really afraid of the type of legislation that might hurt their opportunity to keep a real job. If young people got jobs today, wanted to campaign to increase the minimum wage, and went out on a limb to say “Well, actually, the work that we do should be valued, and paid as such.”—that is, if those young people campaigned to increase the minimum youth wage—their boss could get rid of them. Is that fair?

Under National’s labour market legislation that situation would be absolutely within the realm of possibility, but under Labour we say no. Workers deserve a fair go, they deserve to be protected in the workplace, and they deserve to be given a fair go. If they are released from work they should be given the opportunity to know why. That is why we are supporting this particular bill.

I just cannot believe that the member for Hamilton East stood up in this House to promote a bill that will have impact on those young people who work in Countdown in Hamilton East, and in the Warehouse in Hamilton East, saying that the legislation will create more opportunities. In fact, there are far more young people looking for work than there are jobs available, yet the member for Hamilton East is continuing to promote that bill. He needs to get in contact with real people on the ground, because young people want to know what the National Government’s plan is to create growth so that young people can be employed—so that they can keep their jobs, get paid a real wage, and, more important, ensure that their future job prospects will continue to grow from further opportunities and not be cut off at the post by the 90-day probationary period bill.

What New Zealanders need at the moment is a Government committed to growing our economy and creating decent jobs, a Government with a plan, and a Government that will invest in people. The National Government has failed to deliver on all of those fronts. That Government has no commitment to growing our economy, it has no commitment to creating decent jobs for Kiwis, it has no plan for our country, and it has no desire to invest in New Zealanders. We have heard a number of speeches—predictable, but still disappointing, speeches—from the other side of the House, and I will touch on some of the stuff that has been said tonight.

Mr David Bennett said that New Zealanders should not be automatically entitled to rights in the workplace. He has challenged my assertion that they should be entitled to those rights automatically. I say to Mr Bennett that I am sure that the electorate of Hamilton East would side with my assertions and disagree with what he has said. Let us get straight to the point. This bill is about giving New Zealand wage and salary earners the right to a reason if they are dismissed from their jobs. When 700,000 Kiwis start new jobs each year, that National Government is looking to extend the provision of the 90-day, fire at will bill to apply to each and every one of those 700,000 wage and salary earners who will begin a new job in the next year. I have no doubt that each and every one of those 700,000 workers would be opposed to their rights being removed by that Government. They would oppose the National Government’s corporate favours to its mates, they would oppose being exploited by that Government, they would oppose the arrogance that is being expressed by that side of the House to ordinary working New Zealanders, and they would oppose the complete and utter disregard for fairness and the fundamental rights of wage and salary earners.

Another speech that we had to endure tonight that I want to mention came from Mr David Garrett from the ACT Party. He talked proudly about the fact that National and ACT supported this bill when it came to the House not long after that Government first took office. He talked about something called the “roll of shame”, but the only roll of shame that I know of is the roll of shameful politicians who supported this bill when it first came to the House in 2008. That list includes each and every one of those ACT and National members, including the ones who sit there tonight whom I could name but that would be a waste of my good time with regard to this speech.

Over the last week, we have heard where the priorities of the National Government lie. They lie with such trivial things as the Prime Minister sending a letter to the Queen trying to get the title of “Right Honourable”. That is where the priority of that side of the House lies. Never mind the workers. Never mind the fact that they have been denied their rights. Never mind the fact that the Government side of the House is trying to take away the dignity that each and every New Zealand wage and salary earner should automatically—

💬 David Bennett: Rubbish!

Yes, I say to Mr Bennett, they should automatically be entitled to that dignity. Instead, the Prime Minister concentrated on his title of “Right Honourable”. Obviously, the National Government’s priorities are in the absolutely wrong place. That side of the House fails to recognise that each and every worker in this country, whether on the minimum wage or a higher income, deserves to be treated fairly in the workplace. Each and every one of them is an asset to this country. Each and every one of them deserves respect. Each and every New Zealander deserves job security. They do not deserve what they are getting from the Government side of the House.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am sorry to interrupt the member. The cross dialogue here in unacceptable. Keep the noise down. We have a member who has a very short time to go to finish her speech.

New Zealanders do not deserve a prolonged attack on workers’ rights by the National Government. The Employment Relations (Probationary Period Repeal) Amendment Bill seeks to repeal the 90-day trial period that the National Government introduced for new workers and businesses and is looking to extend. We want to repeal the bill, which the Government introduced, to stop the damage being inflicted on New Zealanders. I ask all of my parliamentary colleagues tonight to support my bill, which will see the National Government’s 90-day, fire at will bill repealed.