Crimes (Theft by Employer) Amendment Bill

Members, when the Crimes (Theft by Employer) Amendment Bill was last read, we were up to call No. 5.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s an absolute pleasure to take a call on this excellent piece of legislation, the Crimes (Theft by Employer) Amendment Bill, and quite fitting, I dare say: from one bill by the current member for Wellington Central to another bill by the future member for Wellington Central.

Now, this bill is not only brought by an excellent MP but contains changes that will make a real difference for workers in New Zealand, and can I just say I am so proud of Ibrahim Omer. I cannot imagine the extreme bravery and tenacity and intelligence and strength of personality that it would take to be a refugee from a different country to come to New Zealand; to suffer the injustice of wage theft in your work; to then become active in your community, organising other workers; to be elected to Parliament; and then to successfully bring a piece of law in order to remedy the injustice that you yourself suffered. What an incredible achievement, my friend.

Quite aside from that achievement, this bill is extremely necessary to right a wrong, really, within our system. At the moment, if you are employed by someone and that employer doesn’t pay you money intentionally—what would commonly be understood as theft—then there are no repercussions for that employer apart from civil remedies. That is not acceptable. If employees steal from their employer—and that’s what we’re talking about—the first thing that employers do is go to the police, and that employee suffers the full force of the law if they are found guilty for that offence. There is no justification for having a different rule apply to employers than it does to employees. It’s not right, and this bill will make it right.

It’s not, also, a bill which is without precedent. We’ve got cases of other countries adopting wage theft bills to indicate fairness between employers and employees. We’ve had similar legislation introduced in Norway, and also much closer to us, in Victoria. So I was shocked and surprised when reading the earlier speeches in the first reading debate that this bill is not being supported by National and ACT members, parties that purport to be tough on crime. As the member bringing this bill said in first reading, this bill is a bill which is tough on crime. When you steal, you should suffer the consequences of those actions, if you’re found guilty, and this bill does just that.

Now, some members opposite have said in previous readings that there are already mechanisms to allow those employers who don’t pay their employees to be held to account. I do not agree. The way that employees would have to do this is through civil claims, through taking claims for unlawful deductions of wages, having enforcement through the civil court. This is a difficult process, has to be self-initiated, and is often outside the reach of many of the workers that suffer wage theft.

This should be bread and butter work for the New Zealand Police. When you steal from someone who works for you, you should be held to account by the New Zealand Police, and this is what this bill would do. It’s extremely important that we seek to remedy injustices when we see them in our society, and the different treatment of employers and employees in relation to payment is one of those areas which we must address. This is so we have equitable consequences within employment and seek to remedy what has been established over a very long period of time as the power difference between employees and employers. People must be able to work and be paid what they are owed, and this very good bill seeks to achieve that.

So I once again want to commend my colleague and my friend Ibrahim Omer for bringing this excellent bill to the House. This bill will make our laws better, it will make them fairer, and it will make them more equitable for New Zealand workers. I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m stoked to get to stand up and speak in support of the Crimes (Theft by Employer) Amendment Bill in the name of Ibrahim Omer. And just acknowledging the significance of this piece of legislation and it being brought to somebody who, I think I’ve just heard, has experienced this themselves and is now looking at making change for everyone else in that position. It’s the best of Parliament if you ask me, when that is able to happen. So congratulations.

I also want to talk about that point, reinforce the message that’s already being put out there, about equity. Like, if employees can be subject to criminal offenses for stealing but an employer, we just pretend it’s somehow in a different category and not as important. That’s a really socially destructive message to send, as well as the impact that it has on those workers’ lives. And if we’re wondering in terms of is this a big issue, like I think one of the points of information that I looked to was the Auckland University of Technology (AUT) hospitality survey of workers in 2022 that found 18 percent of hospitality workers they surveyed were not getting the minimum wage. Just hear that again: 18 percent. And 22 percent of the workers they surveyed were not getting their correct holiday pay, and another 22—or possibly the same 22 percent—were not getting correct time off or paid for the stat holidays. So this is widespread and our system at the moment is clearly, based on those figures, not working to stop that theft. Our families and our communities and marginalised workers are paying for that on a daily basis when they are struggling to pay their bills.

I also want to look at whether this is—overseas examples. There’s been research I found around comparing different states in the US and wage theft interventions that found that laws that most dramatically increased punitive damages saw the greatest declines in the incidence of minimum wage violations, while other types of wage theft laws did not appear to have any effect. So we have evidence, and I hope the select committee will be testing that evidence through the process about, actually, are the fines strong enough in this bill, do we need to strengthen them to get that effect.

I also want to commend the member for using the member’s bill opportunity to be able to address what he can, but there is a wider issue in terms of the structure of our labour market and enforcement of basic employment rights that I do think needs to be acknowledged. We have a really precarious situation for many workers in temporary casual situations, contracting—whether they’re actually contracting or not—who are unable to access their rights through our court processes. One of the recommendations out of the AUT research was that we should be increasing our labour inspectorate to be able to ensure that the laws we have in place are enforced so that the burden does not always sit with the person who’s affected and being harmed by the behaviour of others, in this case employers.

And just to point out that New Zealand, I think the last report had one labour inspector per 57,000 workers. The International Labour Organization’s recommended level is one labour inspector per 10,000. We are far out of step. So when we hear messages from this certain side of the House about cutting our Public Service, actually we need to be increasing it when it comes to enforcement. But we are very pleased to be supporting this bill because it is an equity issue and it is a really significant problem in our community that is long overdue to be addressed. Congratulations.

It’s a huge privilege to speak on this bill. I just want to begin by saying that everyone should receive fair pay for their hard work, and Labour is working hard to protect our workers and their rights, and is ensuring that they get a fair deal without exploitation by strengthening laws around work. This bill amends the Crimes Act 1961 to clarify that not paying an employee wages is theft.

Currently, offences relating to theft by a person in a special relationship are insufficient to account for wage theft by employers. Right now, the processes are too complex and can discourage those who are victims of wage theft to raise their concerns. This bill makes a distinction which will set out in the law—giving clear direction to employees—that they have the right to be paid what they are due. It’s a symbolic change for workers, and it will be the first time that this distinction will be clarified in law.

Workers deserve protection under the law, and it’s often our low-income and immigrant workers who are victims of wage theft. Ibrahim Omer, the member who introduced this bill to the House, discussed this before the debate was interrupted a couple of weeks ago. We’ve just heard Camilla Belich talk about Ibrahim’s journey and how he got to this place, and I’ll tell you what, mate, it’s an absolute inspiration to see you here in this House, being able to effect change. I’m blimmin proud of you, and I’m blimmin proud to be your mate.

This also came up when the Hon Phil Twyford and I, and also Ibrahim Omer and Camila Belich, had an Afghan community forum several weeks ago, where we got the community together and had a chance to discuss their experiences in New Zealand. A lot of them have only recently moved to New Zealand after this Government conducted evacuations from Hamid Karzai International Airport, and they have just recently resettled in Auckland. It was really good just having a chat to them about work and how they have settled in and how their employer-employee relationship was going, and one of the things that concerned me was around how they weren’t totally aware of what their rights were. So that was a very important thing for us MPs to hear, so we can provide that wraparound support and that constituency service, particularly around what their employee rights were.

The new offence created by this bill will capture employers who owe wages and intentionally do not pay them to the employee. This includes the unlawful withholding of wages, salaries, and other monetary entitlements within the employment relationship. This bill supports the Government’s commitment to ensuring that everyone should receive fair pay for hard work. Labour is working hard to protect our workers’ rights and ensure that they get a fair deal without that exploitation, and by strengthening laws around work.

As discussed earlier, stealing a computer or a car—that’s considered theft. So why should stealing wages be any different? For once, what we would like to see is for the National Party to exercise what they so frequently preach in this House, which is to get tough on crime and support victims, and support this bill, because over on this side of the House, we’re committed to cracking down on crime, and this is part of that.

This bill is about human dignity. This was highlighted by Council of Trade Unions president, Richard Wagstaff, who stated that wage theft is an insidious practice that tends to target low-income and immigrant workers, and he further stated that we hear too many stories of hard-working people being ripped off by dodgy bosses, with no real repercussions. So it’s an important to have meaningful penalties for employers who steal from their workers, and it’s important that the law makes it clear that these criminal penalties do not replace an obligation to pay back the wages owed to workers.

So, in sum, everyone should receive fair pay for hard work. That is what Labour is all about—it’s about preserving workers’ rights. I’d like to thank the member who brought this bill before the House, and I’d like to commend it to the House. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a real pleasure to be able to rise and take a call on this very important bill. I do want to acknowledge our member Ibrahim Omer, who has brought this important bill, the Crimes (Theft by Employer) Amendment Bill of this year.

I had to go back to the Hansard to read what the bill was about and the circumstances. And as a new migrant, I could only reflect on my own family who had gone through a similar process—but at the time, my family did not have the skills and probably did not have the courage. The purpose of the bill is to bring in line the important amendment in the Crimes Act to enable migrant workers, but also from our communities—some of our communities have been here a long time.

The member in charge, Ibrahim Omer, has carefully given his contribution, and I want to acknowledge him because of his passion, but also his courage. He went through probably a very awful episode. It was a tough situation, and, no doubt, reflecting what others had also gone through but did not have the tools or the skills. He, as a migrant worker with an employer who thought that he could just make the most of the situation, and Ibrahim had lost probably his dignity as well.

So in the Wages Protection Act 1983, it’s a general rule that employers, when they have had employees do work for them, that they pay accordingly because those employees deserve the wages and they are not allowed to deduct any of the money that is owed to the employees. So this is an important bill to protect specific employees. It amends the Crimes Act 1961. The bill seeks to criminalise an employer who carries out this action unlawfully—those who would take the employee’s wages. So when the bill passes, we know that it will give employees certainty to protect those rights. It’s been well-considered, it’s been well-traversed, and it inserts a new section 220AA into the Crimes Act 1961 that provides for an employer’s intentional failure to pay an employee any money. It is very clear: it is theft. So the enforcement penalties are important because when there are situations as such, sometimes our new communities to Aotearoa are too—what we call—whakamā; they’re too embarrassed and they don’t know what to do. So it is important that this bill reflects that and that they protect the employees. It’s important to our representatives in this House as lawmakers that migrant communities have the protection.

So I welcome the recommendation and I strongly support our colleague. I thank him for his courage and that the fair pay, the protection for workers—we don’t want our workers in New Zealand to be exploited by anything. We want our employers to act within their rights, that when they have had workers and the workers have done really good work, that they pay their employees and that they are protected and it is set up very clearly in law.

Just as I wrap up, it is important, when we have people of other cultures who come to the land of Aotearoa, that they understand their rights and obligations, and when they do hard work that they are paid a fair wage. The Labour Government has worked really hard in terms of ensuring that Aotearoa has the laws of the land and looks after employees across the motu. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I want to commence my contribution on the first reading of this Crimes (Theft by Employer) Amendment Bill in the name of Ibrahim Omer by congratulating him on having a bill drawn from the ballot. There are many MPs who, in the life of their parliamentary careers, either don’t have a bill drawn at all, and then there are some who seem to have remarkable luck. I’m thinking of Louisa Wall, particularly, who seemed to have incredible good luck at having member’s bills drawn.

But on this occasion, this bill has been drawn. I’m sure that the member in whose name it is, Ibrahim Omer, is very committed, and very sincere about the objectives that he seeks to achieve from this piece of legislation. But it’s a piece of legislation that is affectionately referred to around these precincts as a “ballot-stuffer”. It’s a piece of legislation that is put in by a backbench Government MP to load the ballot, in order that Opposition bills are less likely to be drawn. It’s a classic ballot-stuffer. It seeks to essentially be a solution that is looking for a problem. It’s been widely acclaimed by only one organisation, as far as I could see, and that was the Council of Trade Unions (CTU)—Richard Wagstaff.

I did a little bit of a search into media commentary or analysis of this piece of legislation. All I could find was an endorsement from the CTU. I think that gives people who may be listening to this debate at home or on television watching it, or in their cars listening to it on the radio, a sense of what the purpose and tradition and history behind this piece of legislation is. It’s a piece of union legislation. The Labour Party and the trade union movement, their history, their politics, and their connectedness is very well known and needs no further elucidation in this Parliament.

But I suspect that the intent, as I say, though well meaning, doesn’t really match the reality. Notwithstanding the speeches that have been made by Government and Green members in the debate this afternoon, there simply isn’t any evidence of systemic and widespread abuse in this area. Naturally, and, of course, worker exploitation is an issue that is serious, and from time to time, does occur. But the vast majority of employers are good employers. The vast majority of employers are good employers. Yes, just as in any other sector of the economy, or any other sphere of human endeavour, occasionally, there are people and businesses that don’t meet the measure of acceptable behaviour in terms of how they account for workers’ wages. That does, from time to time, occur.

But that doesn’t mean that we should suddenly change what has been a long held practice in the New Zealand civil jurisdiction of applying matters of this sort through a civil process, rather than a criminal process. It doesn’t mean that we should necessarily just toss the baby out with the bathwater. What this legislation would do actually has potential to achieve a perverse negative outcome. The proponents of the bill, including the mover, the member whose name it is in, Ibrahim Omer, would indicate that by putting it into the criminal jurisdiction it’s going to have some kind of better outcome for people who have been the victims of poor employer accounting and management of employee wages and funds. That’s not going to be the case, because we know, we know that our criminal justice system is already under immense pressure—immense pressure. The likelihood is that any action that comes as a result of this legislation—should it ever see the light of day, by the way—is going to actually slow down rather than speed up. And it will put the criminal justice system—already under great pressure—under even more pressure.

So look, this bill will get a first reading. The Government will use its majority. The Green Party will support it. But we, in the National Party, don’t support it. It will get a first reading, it will go to a select committee, and then it’ll be up to a future member to lead it through to its natural conclusion at some point.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Can I begin, like my colleagues, in congratulating Ibrahim Omer on having his bill drawn from the ballot. I must admit, I have mixed feelings about the ballot—as a previous member mentioned, I am one of those who has not had any ballot success—but I do think, in this instance, it has produced some magic. This is the right bill, this is the right time, and it is most certainly the right person to bring this issue to the House. Camilla Belich referred to my colleague Ibrahim Omer as the future member for Wellington Central—which he absolutely is. He is also the co-chair of Labour’s ethnic caucus, and this is an issue that he’s bringing which affects many people in our multicultural communities, which is very, very important.

I do just want to respond to the previous speaker, Scott Simpson, and his comments about this being a “ballot-stuffer” and that it’s not needed—but then maybe it will be problematic. I agree with him that most employers do the right thing and they’re great employers, but there are some who aren’t. I’ve spoken a number of times in this House about working at Youth Law for almost a decade, where about 40 percent of our work was employment-related. People would call us with issues like this. They would say, “My paycheque is repeatedly incorrect, even after I’ve asked about it.” They say, “I don’t get to take a meal break or I have to do work tasks even though I’m clocked out.” They say, “I’m an hourly worker who completes overtime hours, but I don’t get paid for my overtime.” They’ve said to us, “The workplace has misclassified my work status.” They say, “I’m a contractor, which means that I don’t get minimum wage or overtime.” They say, “My boss makes me pay upfront for a uniform and they make me pay other costs as well; I’m never reimbursed.” They say, “The employer asks me to purchase things on behalf of the company; they never reimburse me.” They have often said, “I have left my job, but never, never received my final paycheque.”

This is happening. It is happening frequently, and, unfortunately, it is happening to the people who are often in the shadows already, who can’t afford legal advice; who won’t pursue this through the courts. The previous speaker also said we were putting this into the criminal justice system—we are not removing rights under the civil system. This really is, in my view, for those really serious cases. We have a definition of criminal theft already in the Crimes Act. Not all instances of theft are prosecuted; that’s where you move in to prosecutor’s discretion in terms of what they prosecute and what they don’t. And no doubt the select committee will be investigating this and asking questions about this as it goes to select committee.

A large part of this bill is about one key question, which is: what separates the things that accrue civil liability from those that legitimately accrue criminal liability? A number of members have pointed out that when an employee steals from their employers, they can dismiss you, bring a civil claim, and they can call the police where they may be subject to criminal liability. That is not the case if you are an employee who hasn’t been paid what’s owed to you. There is a moral gravity; there is a public interest in criminal conduct. It’s not about resolving a dispute simply between two individuals; it’s about society having skin in the game because there’s moral gravity around the issue. Theft is deemed criminal when an employee commits it, but not when an employer commits it—and that says that there is something askew about our moral gravity.

Lisa Mariott wrote that “Justice is challenged when people [engage] in the same activity [but] receive different sanctions”. That is entirely what this bill is trying to protect. Richard Posner, who wrote An Economic Theory of the Criminal Law, said that the criminal law exists to impose punishments such as imprisonment in situations where tort remedies are an insufficient deterrent. Deterrent, in this case, is the taint of conviction, and often, in my view, that is going to be a fine—but no doubt the select committee will investigate this further. Thank you, Madam Speaker. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’d like to begin my response by thanking all the colleagues who spoke on this bill. I appreciate the kind words that have been said about me, but this is all about the people who have been affected by wage theft. I’d like to thank the Green Party for their support.

Wage theft is widespread and it’s happening everywhere. There are hundreds of stories out there in the media. You don’t need to even go too far to see how bad and how deep wage theft is in our country. As many colleagues indicated, there are so many stories but, unfortunately, tonight, what we hear from the Opposition MPs is that—these people are being told that your stories, your pain, what happened to you doesn’t matter. The reality is that this bill is simply set to make wage theft a crime. Stealing from an employee, deliberately, is a crime. It doesn’t make sense that when employees steal from an employer, they can get a penalty—imprisonment of up to six years. If it’s the other way around, it’s a civil matter; the employer can get a slap on the wrist and they can get away with it.

This is all about righting the wrong. It’s about correcting the inconsistency in our justice and crimes Acts. Now, we all know that the Hon Scott Simpson said that, yes, the vast majority of employers are good and they treat their employees with dignity and respect but we also can’t deny that there are businesses for whom their whole business model is all about stealing from people, from vulnerable people who can’t speak up for themselves. Yes, it happened to me but it’s happening as we speak now, and it’s every day, it’s deep, it’s widespread, it’s ugly, it’s a blood sport in our country, and that’s not OK.

We have heard countless stories from throughout the country when the bill was introduced in this House and I have received emails, messages, phone calls, people sharing their stories, and I have spoken about this in the first reading. Now, tonight, Opposition MPs are telling these people “Your voice, your pain doesn’t matter.” What a shame; so much for being tough on crime, because wage theft is a crime. Stealing from anyone—whether employees stealing from employer or the other way around—it is a crime and it should be treated as such.

This bill has been referred to the Education and Workforce Committee, of which I am a member and also deputy chair, and I’m really, really looking forward to engaging with submitters and people with the real stories. There is nothing more powerful than people’s stories, people who have been affected by this bill. I’m really looking forward to hearing from them. Not only from them; I’m also looking forward to hearing from businesses, from good businesses, good employers who actually—I have spoken to quite a few employers who don’t like what’s happening, they don’t agree with what’s happening; they want something to be done about wage theft and exploitation, and I’m really looking forward to engaging with them because this has been going on for a long time and we cannot tell people that your story, your pain doesn’t matter. Enough is enough.

Again, I’d like to thank all the members who have spoken tonight in support of this bill and I still ask the Opposition to reconsider this because it’s not OK. When the poor steal from the rich it’s a crime; when the rich steal from the poor, it’s a civil matter. It’s unfair; it needs to change. Thank you.

The question is, That the

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Education and Workforce Committee.