Defence (Workforce) Amendment Bill

on behalf of the Minister of Defence: I move, That the Defence (Workforce) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee to consider the bill and I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by four months and one day after the bill receives its first reading.

This bill amends the Defence Act of 1990 and it improves when and how the Chief of Defence Force can backfill civilian roles if industrial action within the New Zealand Defence Forces puts at risk national security or the delivery of core defence outputs.

In an increasingly volatile world, we need a defence force that is deployable, combat capable, and interoperable with our international partners, ready and equipped to do whatever is asked of it. We also need common-sense legislation which will enable the women and men who make up the New Zealand Defence Force to do their job and to do it well.

The New Zealand Defence Force comprises hard-working and highly skilled military personnel and civilian staff. Each plays an important role in maintaining New Zealand’s defence and national security. This is why when civilian staff take industrial action, there can be very rapid and serious impacts on the readiness and outputs of the New Zealand Defence Force. Current legislative settings restrict when and how the Chief of Defence Force can backfill civilian roles, and this can put national security and the delivery of those core defence outputs at risk—for example, when civilian staff take industrial action, this could mean there’s no one available to guard munitions and weapons stores on military camps and bases. Other risks could include military personnel missing out on critical training, or aircraft going without the maintenance that is required before deployment. That’s why this bill is so important. It seeks to remove these risks if or when industrial action occurs within the Defence Force.

When civilian staff took industrial action last year, the Chief of Defence Force had to seek ministerial authorisation to redeploy military personnel to perform the duties of civilian staff taking industrial action. Fourteen days later, the Minister of Defence had to return to Parliament to seek a resolution to continue to redeploy military personnel to perform civilian tasks as industrial action was still ongoing. This event showed us just how vulnerable the management of the Defence Force could be when industrial action takes place.

The process also highlighted three issues. The first is that the ability of military personnel to perform core civilian duties is constrained if a direct threat to safety and health is absent—for example, some civilian staff are responsible for arranging logistics to support important New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) training activities. If these staff went on strike, it may not be possible to authorise military personnel to conduct this work, because health and safety thresholds would not be met, but a delay or cancellation to training could in fact result in personnel being less prepared for military operations, and put deployment timing and commitments at risk, and this suggests that the criteria to enable an authorisation is too limited.

The second issue relates to military personnel only being authorised to conduct the work of civilian staff taking industrial action for a maximum of 14 days. Should the Minister wish to extend this authorisation, they must seek a resolution from this House. This process is onerous when we consider that other employers can simply ask their own staff to cover the work of those taking industrial action, without an authorisation or a resolution from Parliament.

The third matter relates to the process. To seek a resolution from the House can result in sensitive information being shared in Parliament. This could prejudice national security and put members of the New Zealand Defence Force at risk. These challenges show that the Chief of Defence Force needs greater flexibility to manage the workforce when industrial action occurs within NZDF. To mitigate the risks presented by the existing process, I, on behalf of the Minister of Defence, propose to introduce a new process to authorise the armed forces to conduct the work of New Zealand Defence Force civilian staff who are taking industrial action. This would only apply when there are reasonable grounds to believe that an authorisation is needed to avoid prejudicing national security or the ability and/or readiness of the armed forces to perform specific operational duties that are integral to the core defence outputs.

The second part of these criteria may sound broad, but it is worded intentionally so that multiple tests must be met before the criteria can apply—for example, the “readiness” to be “prejudiced”: it must be shown that industrial action has an impact on personnel being ready and equipped for deployment or other operational activities. To fit the meaning of specific operational activities, the activity must be consistent with the Defence Act of 1990 or authorised by Government or by mechanisms such as the defence output plan.

The bill also makes procedural changes to ensure that authorisations can be efficient and effective. Rather than an authorisation lasting for 14 days, the Minister of Defence will be able to say how long an authorisation will last, and this would remove the requirement to have a parliamentary debate about whether the New Zealand Defence Force can deploy people within their own organisation for longer than 14 days.

It’s important to note that the intent of these changes is not to prevent industrial action in the defence force; these changes are intended to ensure that the industrial action has limited impact on the Defence Force, and the defence and security of New Zealand. Changes will, of course, continue to preserve the right of civilian staff to take industrial action. The authorisation of military personnel to cover civilian tasks when industrial action occurs is not taken lightly but, when required, it should be practical in its application. This is why the bill also increases the number of days the Minister of Defence may authorise the armed forces to conduct the work of Public Service employees outside of the New Zealand Defence Force, from 14 to 30 days. The bill enables the Chief of Defence Force to better manage their workforce. It ensures that the security of New Zealand and the safety of New Zealanders endures while civilian staff exercise their rights.

We face the most challenging strategic circumstances in New Zealand’s modern history and certainly the worst that anyone today working in politics or foreign affairs can remember. That’s why the practical changes contained in this amendment must be made.

The selfless and committed women and men of the New Zealand Defence Force deserve to have legislation that enables their readiness to deploy to and on behalf of New Zealand, and it’s critical we ensure that we can always protect New Zealand, New Zealanders, and our way of life. I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Can I start my contribution on this bill by acknowledging all of the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) personnel—men and women—who serve our country in different ways, overseas and here, domestically. They do a fantastic job representing New Zealand, and I want to acknowledge them from the outset.

I want to put it on the record for the Government, at this point in time, that Labour won’t be supporting this bill. I want to point out why, and I want to also look towards how we might be able to make sure that this bill can have broader consensus across the House, because we do think there are some smart things in here around process and the way that we might be able to look towards supporting the decision making when these decisions are made to deploy NZDF uniformed personnel into civilian roles.

I want to start by saying this: when the Minister was making cuts to the civilian roles in the Defence Force, we asked this House and the Minister, on numerous occasions, whether those cuts would have a meaningful impact on the role of our NZDF personnel to either deploy or to do their job. The Minister told this House, “No, it wouldn’t.”—“No, it wouldn’t.”—yet here we are, saying that there are challenges here because there is industrial action being taken, and, now, all of a sudden, the Government is trying to backfill those spaces to make sure that they can continue the very basics of their functions.

We’re the Labour Party. We stood up for those who work in the civilian roles—important civilian roles acknowledged by the Chief of Defence Force—important civilian roles that allow the NZDF personnel to do their jobs to their very best. The Government decided, at the time, to make significant cuts. Now, when we look across industrial action, we can’t simply look at the NZDF in isolation. There is industrial action being taken against this Government in so many sectors it’s not funny. That side of the House might laugh, but let’s have a good hard look at it: teachers, nurses, doctors, civilian roles in the NZDF, and the list goes on and on. We want to be very clear that when we make sure we decide to deploy the NZDF into these spaces, there are strong checks and balances.

The Minister pointed out that the Minister of Defence can come in here and make the statement without this Parliament debating the point. I don’t agree with that. I believe that that is an erosion of the democracy that this House stands for. Every party in this House should be able to debate those decisions and put on record, very clearly, what their position is. Now, there are some exceptions, and I’ll give it that. When we had the coronavirus and the one-in-100-year pandemic in this country, we were in Government then. We made the decision to utilise our NZDF personnel to support our quarantine activities and other activities to keep this country safe. All we got from the current Government is, “Well, the Labour Government killed the NZDF.” We know it was a challenging time, but, now, this Government’s prepared to change the law to say that uniformed personnel can fill the roles of the civilian workforce in the NZDF.

Now, I ask this House: is that right and is that fair? It isn’t. When there are checks and balances in place, they must continue to be upheld so that the public have faith in our democracy. What’s going to happen—I can see it—is the decision-making pyramid will get smaller and smaller and, before you know it, we’ll have too much power in the hands of too few. That’s the challenge when you erode democratic rights.

Now, I’ll say it again to the House: we’re prepared to work with the Government on some of the proposals in this bill because we do believe that some of them are common sense, but, ultimately, the Government must answer this question: why is the civilian workforce taking industrial action against this Government? Silence from the other side.

We know that the decisions made by this Government to make cuts across the public sector, which include the civilian workforce in the New Zealand Defence Force, would have an impact. That Government stood up every day in this House and said, “No, it won’t. Health services won’t be impacted.”—what’s happened? Longer wait times; “No, it won’t. The roles on the NZDF will be fine, and they’ll be able to undertake their roles safely.” Now we’re being told, “Hold on. We might have to change the law so we can deploy to backfill those roles.” Let’s work together to see if we can get broader consensus.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Let me also echo the comments by the Hon Peeni Henare to acknowledge our defence personnel. I’m probably not the only Māori in this Whare that has always had relations in all the various different armed forces, both before and also currently. When you think of them as whānau, think of them as workers, you always want the best for them. Also noting that many of them often move over to these civilian roles as well.

When I look at this legislation, I see a pattern of behaviour from this Government. I see a pattern of behaviour which is trampling on the rights of workers. I see this, and it was articulated by the Public Service Association (PSA), actually, where they say this is like strike-breaking legislation. There’s a strike happening, the Government doesn’t like it, so they bring somebody in. Imagine how awkward it is going to be in the smoko room on those days, because I can guarantee you that many of these workers, whether they’re uniformed or not, will have those relationships as well.

I do support what the PSA is saying: it is a pattern of behaviour; we are seeing that right across the country. We are seeing teachers on strike, we are seeing nurses on strike, hospitality workers on strike, because this Government is trampling on the rights of workers. I see this as just another step in that direction.

I say that because if you go through the regulatory impact statement, there was a suggestion that, actually, they should sit down with the workers—sit down with the workers, sit down with the unions, those that undertook the strike before—and actually have a conversation about how to best deal with the situation. When I talk to workers, they are always well aware of the health and safety implications of strike action. They will always try to do their best to make sure that our core services continue in the case of hospitals or in the case of our firefighters, as well. I would suspect that would be the same case with these workers.

It requires a Government to engage and it requires a Government to have good-faith practices. It requires a Government to actually understand that they need to work with workers, understand that what workers want is dignity, first of all, but also decent jobs.

The regulatory impact statement does make interesting reading. Previously, the legislation was: well, unless it’s a work and health and safety kind of issue—that’s when all this stuff kicks in. However, there was a difference of opinion that I could see in the regulatory impact statement, which shows that the Ministry of Defence did not recommend including the delivery of core outputs. When I heard the Minister talking earlier saying, “Well, actually there are national security implications”, I think the members opposite should spell out exactly what they mean by that; give us clear examples. He also talked about a readiness test—I was listening carefully. They should spell out exactly what that means as well and give us real-life examples that people can understand.

The other issue I see around the core delivery of outputs is: what is that? It could be anything that the Minister just dreams up. Maybe the photocopier is broken and it’s going to inhibit the delivery of a core output. Is that what we’re including? Is that one of the elements? That is not clear in this case.

I do not think that this bill is sufficient. I do not think it has really engaged widely in the way that it has. I am disappointed that we are going to be moving to a shortened select committee process. I see that within the pattern of behaviour of this Government; it’s that pattern of behaviour which concerns me. It’s a pattern of behaviour that should concern all of this House, because when people feel that they are disrespected in their jobs, they look elsewhere. When they feel that people don’t appreciate what they’re doing, they look elsewhere. What we need is for people to stay in this country to make it the best place that it can be.

I also make the other point as well about whether this Government is actually looking after defence personnel in the best way that they can. Why are all of these roles being done by civilian personnel? Is it because there’s not enough support in there for our defence personnel as well?

I do not commend this bill to the House. It is not thought out, it is a strike-breaking bill, and the Greens will not support this bill. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party, and I too would like to firstly give a shout-out to the men and women who serve New Zealand. We know that times are really tough out there with the geopolitical situation, so, more than ever, we really appreciate you and the hard work that you do.

Look, I think it would be wrong of me not to just set the record straight. This bill is not intended to backfill any roles that the civilians may or may not play within the Defence Force. That is completely not true. What this bill does is something that, actually, the Minister can do at any point of time, anyway, when it comes to industrial action. It just makes that process slightly easier. That is all it is. For those that are sitting at home, I’m going to make this really simple. I’m going to tell you exactly what this bill does.

This bill, essentially, extends a time period from when a Minister can use those in uniform to do activities such as security. If we had security guards going on strike—we want them to still be able to go on strike; that is part of their rights, and they’re able to do that. We want to still encourage that, but we need to make sure that our bases are safe. Could we have security walk off and just leave our bases open? It blows my mind. This is actually enabling those employees to be able to actually strike and for our Defence Force to maintain safety.

Going from 14 days to 30 days is not a massive shift. For a Minister to have to come back into the House and reaffirm this isn’t a huge deal. We’re only extending this out by a fortnight, and there could be circumstances in which industrial action could go on for some time—we’re not sure; we’re just foreseeing this in the future. It’s a waste of this House’s time for a Minister to be coming back and forward over something that is, quite frankly, able to happen out there in the private sector already.

I think, as a new MP, I was actually quite amazed that this is something that the Minister needed to do, because I would have thought that we would want to enable any of our civilians doing jobs within the Defence Force to be able to strike a lot easier.

Now, to those across the House that said that we should be listening to those employees, I 100 percent agree. That’s why this is going to the select committee. It’s coming to a good select committee, and I really do hope that we get good engagement. I’m going to commend this bill to the House, and I look forward to hearing more about it when it comes to our great select committee.

It is a great honour to speak on this bill, on behalf of New Zealand First, and I would like to join colleagues across the House in acknowledging the work of our armed services and the role they play in keeping us safe and in being prepared, actually, to walk into what, for many of us, would be unimaginable danger.

New Zealand First has always been a major supporter of our military. We’re very proud of the investment that the coalition is putting into our armed forces and our military at the moment in this greatly upheaved geopolitical environment, and, of course, we’ve got a fine track record of supporting our military. We were very honoured to have, in our last term in Parliament, the Hon Ron Mark as defence Minister and veterans Minister, and anyone who knows Ron or was around him in that time will know that no one was prouder to serve in that role than Ron; so a shout-out to Ron. The fact that we’ve got the P-8 Poseidons and the Hercules coming through now is a direct result of his advocacy.

This bill, as Laura McClure has just pointed out, is actually quite a minor tweak to a provision that is already in legislation, in terms of just making a 30-day provision rather than a 14-day provision. It’s a very common-sense amendment to what there is already the ability to do. This is not undermining workers’ rights—we do support their right to take industrial action—but we cannot, under any circumstances, be enfeebling our military or encroaching on their ability to serve or to execute critical tasks that they do. I might add that it’s not only military or offensive operations; often it is in state of emergency and severe weather events like Cyclone Gabrielle. As the Hon Peeni Henare referenced, during COVID they were called into action.

Having any encroachment on the ability of our armed forces or our military to execute their responsibilities—this bill takes away some of the uncertainty or the narrowness of the current provisions when there is lawful industrial action being undertaken by the civil staff who play such an important role in supporting our military. New Zealand First will be supporting this bill. We’re fully in support, so we commend the Minister for bringing it forward and commend it to the House. Thank you.

Tēnā koe e te Pīka. I think it’s one thing to open with a speech—not mine; what I was listening to—as if people don’t quite get it. You know, it’s like “So I’m going to clarify something.” There’s something, I think, arrogant about that and assuming that people don’t actually get what’s going on. People do get that, because they don’t trust what’s going on. So when people think about “Gee, should I really listen?”, the reason they don’t, unfortunately, is because too many of our people, Māori included, just do not trust anything that’s coming out from those to my left in the House. So don’t be surprised, shocked, and cry-baby about the fact that people do not trust, they do not listen, and they can’t take you seriously. That’s the point that I want to make as I open up our position, as Te Pāti Māori, and say we will not be supporting this.

What we do recognise, and I tautoko the kōrero a Hon Peeni Henare; e mihi ana ki wā tātou whanaunga i roto i te New Zealand Defence Force [I support the statement of Peeni Hēnare; I acknowledge our relatives in the New Zealand Defence Force].

Māori women, Māori men, all women and men in that special and important Defence Force.

In fact, what it seems to me is—and, again, noting some other comments from my immediate right, here—what is this going to be like in the smoko room? You know, how is this going to go? You’ve got our Defence Force team, and then you’ve got them working and taking the space of our civilian work—that’s not a good, smart, or safe way, I think, to treat people.

Just picking up again that this is already something that can happen in an extension of time. The reason, again, that I want to affirm is that the people don’t get those points, and nor do they even probably care about them, because they don’t trust, overall, the approach that this Government is taking, and they fear what this Government is doing. You would have and you would have seen that, obviously, when 100,000 people came and walked on this Parliament and just said, “You’re screwing up, change what you’re doing.”—which, of course, you haven’t taken a bit of notice of.

So back to this particular issue. Last year, the members of the Public Service Association (PSA)—that’s right, that’s right. The ACT Party was the only one that agreed to that one, and the rest of you woke up and did a good thing and voted against it.

Last year, members of the PSA working within the Defence Force were offered a 0 percent pay increase. The only way they were able to improve that situation was through strike action. That right to strike is what allowed progress to be made—OK? That’s how it happened, so that they could actually make that happen. But this bill threatens to remove that power. It’s that—

Tim Costley: No, it doesn’t—no it doesn’t. That’s not true.

MARIAMENO KAPA-KINGI: It is absolutely true, and you can’t be trusted with telling the truth, so I’m just going to carry on. This bill threatens to remove that power. If the armed forces are legally enabled to take over the roles of striking staff, then the impact of striking is, effectively, neutralised. The strike becomes symbolic, without consequence or leverage. This undermines the very purpose of industrial action.

No workplace can improve if workers are stripped of meaningful avenues to advocate for their rights, and this bill isn’t just an attack on the New Zealand Defence Force civilian staff; it’s a gateway for wider attacks on our nurses, our teachers, our firefighters. [Interruption] I know that there’s a little bit of cry-baby over here to the left of me, but, again, what you’re not recognising is that even if your points that you are attempting to make by squealing right now—they might even be relevant. But here’s the thing that you’re not getting: people do not trust much of anything that you are doing right now—all right? They don’t trust you, and so why on earth would they even bother listening? They cannot take you seriously and, obviously, we do not take you seriously.

The party has no interest in this, and we will not be supporting it. Tēnā koe e te Pīka.

You want to talk about trust? Let me tell you who I trust. I trust the 12,000 Kiwis this morning that got out of bed, put on their uniform, and went to serve in our Defence Force, willing to do whatever it is that their country asks of them. Don’t tell me on the other side—and we hear it from Labour and we hear it from Green and we hear it from Te Pāti Māori about employment conditions and workplace relations. These people are not employees; they are service people. They serve. They do what their country asks. The illiteracy of what our Defence Force is and does and who they are, on the other side of the House, is shocking. People that think that suddenly we’re going to have issues in the smoko room wouldn’t know what one looks like on the inside of the base. The gallant members on this side of the House know exactly what that’s like.

You want to ask about readiness? Let me explain to them, Mr Tuiono, what readiness is. It is the people that sit at home through Christmas, through weekends on rosters to respond to national contingencies, to search and rescue, and to a whole range of things. It’s medics, it’s technicians, it’s soldiers, it’s sailors, and it’s air crew—people waiting to serve this country—and we should be supporting them. That means that if a civilian workforce wants to do what they’re legally entitled to do and take industrial action, which does not change—anyone that says that would be lying. If they want to take that action, we should be supporting them by allowing them to go and do jobs that they already do. There are already military personnel—

Mariameno Kapa-Kingi: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I was just wanting to clarify whether, with the hand action, the member was referring to a liar or anyone lying, and I hope it wasn’t me. I wanted to make that point.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): It was a general enough clause to not be specifically accusing anyone in particular of lying, but the member will be careful.

TIM COSTLEY: There are military personnel guarding military bases today. It seems outrageous that we had to come to Parliament to ask them to do that. There are military personnel servicing aircraft, and yet we had to come to Parliament to ask if more could service aircrafts.

This is a common-sense bill. It is something that I would have thought was in the national interest and that every party could unite on. I cannot believe the fundamental attempt at politics on the other side. There is no understanding of what a defence force does. There is no respect for them; there is no support for them, but that’s what this party is all about.

This debate is interrupted and set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. today.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 1 p.m.