Employment Relations (Pay Deductions for Partial Strikes) Amendment Bill

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. What a surprise it is to be speaking on this bill right at this particular point in time. I will be doing my best to talk to this very important bill. I will start to talk about this bill in the context of what has been happening via the Government’s agenda and the attacks on workers’ rights.

We had just very recently the cancelling of 33 pay equity claims, just another example of the lack of care, the lack of compassion for workers in our country. For many of us who were actually waiting for the legislation to hit the desks, it showed up just after question time. So we knew something was happening. We knew that there was an urgent bill showing up in the House, but we didn’t actually have the very, very specific details until it hit that desk, despite the Government and the Minister Brooke van Velden going down to the tiles and crowing that they had actually saved this Government’s Budget.

We have a difference of opinion across the Government parties on whether they support pay equity and equal pay—and we all should be doing that. But when we have Ministers of the Crown saying, “Actually, this is what we’re going to do. These are the priorities that this Government has.”, that they will prioritise $12 billion and climbing on defence spending, that they will prioritise tax cuts for landlords over the low-paid women workers—those industries where you have predominantly women workers—it is a shame. This bill is another example of that. This bill is another example of that.

This is the partial strikes bill. For people that are out there who don’t know what partial strikes are, they are those other actions that people have been able to take. So you could be wearing a badge expressing a particular view on your workplace or you could have a T-shirt expressing a particular view on your workplace. This bill will penalise you and take away your right to be able to do that. That will put on scope that the only thing that people will be able to do is actually move towards full strikes, taking away another one of those tools in the tool kit for workers to be able to express themselves.

As we were going through this process, I was waiting for the free speech brigade to get up and to talk about the right of workers to have their say, the right of workers to express themselves in the workplace, the rights of workers to be able to talk about the different issues that they’re impacting. Did we hear from them? No, we did not. We did not hear from the free speech brigade, because often when you hear from that lot all they’re really interested in is the free speech of their rich mates and the privileged. Actually, if we really want to talk about freedom, we need to think about freedom in terms of the right for people to collectivise, the right for unions to work together, the right for people, for communities, for workers to be able to have their say, and the freedom to control the affairs and the immaterial needs within our communities. I would go so far to say that we should be able to support that happening within the workplace.

So the Greens, we oppose this bill. We oppose this bill because it takes away another tool in the tool kit—another tool in the tool kit. I would invite members of the Government to explain very, very clearly what this agenda is all about. When I look across the suite of attacks on workers’ rights, when I look across what’s happening with the reintroduction of 90-day trials, with the cancelling of fair pay agreements, when I look at what’s happening to the health and safety regulations, along with playing around with the Holidays Act and all those other kinds of things, I think one of the biggest losers in terms of the voters in all of this are the National Party voters. What we have here is the tail wagging the dog. We have the ACT Party pushing their agenda through the House.

I would not be surprised if members from the National Party are getting pushback in their communities, particularly after last week when you had those 33 pay equity claims cancelled; when we had those 33 pay equity claims extinguished. It points to that wider agenda, and it is something that needs to be called out. So on behalf of the Greens, we absolutely, categorically oppose this bill

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I think we’re going to see a bit, this week, of the Opposition not being able to add up the facts. That is what’s happening when they speak on this bill. See, the argument the Opposition want people to believe is that employees will move from giving up a little bit of their pay for taking a small action, to giving up all of their pay for full strikes. That doesn’t add up. All this bill does is say, “If you take a partial strike, you will have part of your pay deducted.” It’s a pretty simple equation, and one that is fair and reasonable.

During the Education and Workforce Committee hearings, we had one member of a particular union acknowledge, during the question and answer session following their submission to the select committee, that even wearing a branded T-shirt would certainly, and I quote, “have detrimental effect on businesses—on a business’s productivity and brand.” It is not for the Opposition to determine what is right for a business’s success—its ability to grow, to sell, to be productive, to be profitable, and, ultimately, employ people. It is the right of businesses to work with their employees and to contract and negotiate and agree to terms of employment. As part of that, we believe it is appropriate that if you don’t want to do part of the work, if you say you’re not going to do part of the work, you don’t get paid for that part of the work you’re unwilling to do. So I therefore commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to speak on behalf of New Zealand First on this particular partial strikes legislation and respond to the Education and Workforce Committee report.

New Zealand First has always been about balance in employment relations deliberations and bills, and certainly, in the way that we have viewed this bill and looked at the select committee report, we do believe that there needs to be a rebalancing of the partial strikes legislation. It is a powerful mechanism that can impact on productivity in a workplace, and without some guardrails, it could be used—and is used—with impunity. In fact, just over the weekend, I was talking to a rather large employer in a critical piece of infrastructure, whose vital operation for the movement of freight has been impacted by partial strikes in the past, where the unions will get a key group of workers within the broader network to take out a partial strike, which impacts absolutely everyone and shuts down the whole operation. These are a very, very powerful mechanism that impacts productivity, and they do need some guardrails. This is the view that New Zealand First brings to this debate.

They are a legitimate tool; we absolutely accept that partial strikes are a legitimate tool. This legislation does not take away the ability for workers to take partials. It is just balancing the equation a little bit, so that, if you’re going to impact productivity and you’re going to do less work or impact the operations of your employer, you will take a commensurate—up to 10 percent—discount or deduction from your wages, which is something that can be negotiated through. It is a balancing mechanism, which is the criteria that I outlined at the start, with which New Zealand First has looked at this. We are concerned at the potential for this provision, left unchecked, to be weaponised and for an uneven playing field to ensue in employment relations, which is something we look to avoid at all costs.

We must look to the bigger picture here: dividing up an already too small pie. We’ve got a much bigger focus here on growing our economy, lifting employment opportunities, so that workers are able to be fairly paid, employers are able to fairly reward their workers, and it is a competitive employment advantage. We’ve seen a plateauing of the unemployment that had been going up. We’ve seen growth starting to come back into our economy. We actually have had wages rising faster than inflation for the last four quarters, so we’re starting to win here. Also, we’ve seen New Zealanders looking offshore, to Australia primarily, where wages are higher. This is a serious issue for New Zealand. We do have to get wages up. This is not about suppressing wages. It is a competitive employment environment. Employers do need to be prepared to pay a competitive wage, not just with their domestic competitors but also with their international comparators. We’ve also had, of course, importantly within this, things like interest rates trending down, which, as the Prime Minister outlined in question time, is $300 a month for someone on the average mortgage. That’s a real win. We’ve actually seen the data that came out last week, with rents starting to come off as well. That is also a win for working New Zealanders.

New Zealand First believes very, very firmly that a fair day’s work deserves a fair day’s pay, but if you’re not doing a fair day’s work—as you’re not doing under a partial strike—you don’t deserve a full day’s pay. This is what this bill looks to do: to tip the balance back in that equation, to give some consequences so that workers, when they do undertake partial strikes, are doing so with some purpose, not just weaponising the mechanism available to them, knowing that the employers have no way of balancing that up. It is a fairness mechanism, it is an equity mechanism, so New Zealand First has no problem in taking the recommendations that came back from the select committee. We thank the select committee and the submitters for their work. New Zealand First continues to support this bill through the House. Thank you.

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan: Mr Speaker?

This is a split call, so I’ll take Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan for five minutes. Then, we’ll revert to 10-minute calls—National, Labour, National, National, Labour, National—until the conclusion of the debate. Sorry to interrupt you, Dr Xu-Nan. You have the floor.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand to oppose this bill, but I think, firstly, it is genuinely laughable just how little understanding was in some of the speeches we just heard around what constitutes a partial pay strike or what is a partial strike in the first place. There is this idea, this notion, that when we’re looking at a partial strike, it is “You take an hour off out of your eight-hour day, therefore you are working 12.5 percent less, therefore you should be paid 10 percent less.” but that’s simply not the case when we’re looking at the majority of partial strikes here in Aotearoa.

Let’s give you some examples that we’ve heard at the Education and Workforce Committee during the select committee stage, which I know some of the Government members were a part of. Wearing a badge is considered a partial strike; work to rule is considered a partial strike. These are some of the common forms of a partial strike. When we asked the officials and when we asked some of the submitters who are supporting a partial strike what evidence they have that partial strikes actually affect productivity, there is nothing. There is nothing that suggests partial strikes affect productivity. In fact, when we are looking at this, there is the likelihood that a pay deduction to partial strikes would increase the likelihood of a full-blown strike. Is that what members of the Government actually want to see? Because that’s what is going to happen.

Let’s just take work to rule as an example. Far too many people in Aotearoa are not working to the conditions and the requirements of their contract. We see more and more employers who abuse that contractual relationship and that goodwill from their employee. You think, for employers, the shared lunch is going to make up for the fact that people are working an extra hour a day?

Let’s look at some of the examples that we have: the fact that particularly when we’re looking at marginalised communities in Aotearoa, more and more is demanded of them as well to be able to do things like put together their diversity or put together certain workshops, etc., or partake in certain workshops that are not part of their contract. They ask them to work for longer hours that are not part of their contract. A form of partial strike simply is—even including the ability to work to the rules of their contract.

When we did ask them, “Does this mean that with this legislation, employers are able to penalise employees for working to the terms of their own contract?”, the response was: yes, it is likely. This is what we are dealing with when we are looking at this particular legislation. When we are looking at this legislation, what we are going to be seeing is the fact that there will be more and more power imbalance within our work and within our employment in Aotearoa. We are going to see more employers who abuse this legislation to say that an employee has to meet the unreasonable standards that are beyond their contract, otherwise they are rightfully and legally able to deduct their pay. That’s what we’ve heard during the select committee stage.

More broadly speaking, I know that the Government, and pretty much everyone, is interested in productivity, and they used the excuse that partial strikes would reduce productivity, but that’s simply not what we heard as part of the select committee stage.

The Green Party doesn’t support this bill. In fact, there are a number of concerns with this bill and a number of issues and aspects of this bill that we weren’t able to tease out fully during the select committee stage. I look forward to the opportunity to debate on this further during the committee stage. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s an honour to speak in support of the Employment Relations (Pay Deductions for Partial Strikes) Amendment Bill. This bill restores balance to the situation that we have in employment relationships. It allows for employers to be able to take partial reductions where employees take partial strikes. I think it’s important for those who are listening to this at home to understand that there are some exemptions to that; so certain exemptions will still apply. For example, nobody can be made to work overtime. Also, if you decline a callout where there would be additional pay, that’s not included. And, also, I think it’s important that if there’s piece-rate work, which is where you’re paid per item or per activity, that can’t be included as well.

The other thing to realise is that the Employment Relations Authority will also retain the ability to review any of the reviewer’s calculations and intervene if necessary. Being on the committee and having heard some of the ends of this argument, it is a balancing—a rebalancing—it is bringing fairness back, it is a common-sense approach, and I commend the bill to the House.

This is a split call. I’m not sure if anyone wants to take a five-minute call. [Interruption] Oh, it’s a 10-minute call. My apologies. I’m having a bad day!

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I would like to take a 10minute call as there’s a lot to unpack in this bill, which was aptly, perhaps, called by the speaker who just resumed her seat the “Employment Relations (Pay Reductions for Partial Strikes) Amendment Bill.” And that is an accurate name because that is, in fact, what it does.

The last Labour Government removed the ability for partial strikes to have an associated wage deduction from these types of actions, and the reason that they did was quite simple: it’s because partial strikes were taking place, or what was considered from employers to be partial strikes, for very minor actions within employment. For example, and other members have reflected on this, people wearing a badge, people wearing a T-shirt, people wearing a particular colour or a slogan, people showing their support for the negotiations that were under way that their union was undertaking in relation to their collective bargaining. This was seen as unfair because often the people who would be engaging in partial strikes would not be reducing their outputs.

Now, we’ve heard lots of rhetoric on this particular bill from the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety in previous readings, and also from those opposite, that if you reduce your outputs you should reduce the pay that you receive. I would respond to that with: but this is not what this bill does. This bill allows employers to reduce by 10 percent employees’ wages when they have completed all of their tasks in their job, when they have completed all of the duties in their job description and in their employment contract, and they are able to take that 10 percent off their wages without a right for employees being able to challenge that, so long as the rest of the process has been complied with. This is unfair, and that is why those of us on this side of the House have been opposing it.

I was lucky enough to participate in some of the consideration—not all of the consideration of this bill—at the Education and Workforce Committee, and I think that it was a useful select committee process. I was just checking the number of submitters that we did hear, and I’m informed that it is 620. So quite a considerable number; not, obviously, the most that we’ve received on a bill but a considerable number who decided to submit to the House. I don’t have a breakdown of that but my recollection was the vast majority of those who submitted, submitted in opposition to this bill. The reason that they did so was because of what I’ve just outlined: the unfairness of having your wages docked when you have done your job. That is what this bill does. You do your job—

Carl Bates: It does not.

CAMILLA BELICH—and you wear a badge and you get 10 percent—this is what this bill does—you can get 10 percent of your wages docked.

Carl Bates: Well, don’t wear the badge.

CAMILLA BELICH: And those opposite say, “Don’t wear a badge.” Well, sometimes wearing a badge can be an easier way of making a political point than going on doing something that’s more disruptive to an employer, for example withdrawing labour fully or partially. What we heard again and again—no matter the singular example that my colleague was able to pull up to the opposite—at select committee was that this would lead to the full removal of labour or a full strike.

Now, some might say, “What do you do when your employees are partially striking and you’re an employer?” I would say there are tools already that employers can utilise in order to respond to a partial strike. Those include suspension, it includes lockout. These are powerful, powerful abilities that employers already have, and—and I don’t think this should be overlooked—getting back to the negotiating table and actually reaching an agreement with the employer. That is, in fact, what this whole industrial relations landscape is directed towards: being able to negotiate and reach an agreement between employers and employees.

This, in my view—and in the view of many submitters at select committee—will lead to worse relationships between employers and employees because of these arbitrary amounts that can be taken away from employees’ pay packets even if they are still doing the majority of their job. So I would just like to signal that it would be something that we would consider moving at the committee stage, and I’d like the House to consider this: to remove that arbitrary amount. There is another way to calculate this within this bill, which is to look at the proportion of work that someone has completed.

Now, I don’t agree with this bill but I think that’s a more sensible option, and I think most New Zealanders would agree looking at the proportion of work done is a more sensible option than an arbitrary 10 percent. The reason that these other types of partial strikes are allowed is because they are considered breach of contract, and I don’t think—and my colleague opposite suggested—that these do impact the business. Now, I don’t think anyone’s arguing that wearing a badge or protesting may affect the business, but what I am arguing is that it doesn’t affect the job that someone does, necessarily, or the productivity of that person or the fact that they’ve completed their work. I think that’s a really important distinction.

These are acts that are consistent with the strike or, in fact, there may be instances where they’re not. It may be that someone was not as on time as they would like to be to work. They’re in a collective bargaining situation, there is a strike notice out, they haven’t taken the union T-shirt off; they could be considered to be unwittingly a part of a partial strike. That is also a possibility under this bill.

I’ve just got the statistics, now, from my colleague on how many people were supportive of this bill. Apparently, there were four people who were supportive—four submissions in support—606 opposed. So you can see the level of feeling that the submitters had. I don’t see that in the select committee report but I think it’s important to mention, for the record, that there was that level of support as well. There are also additional concerns around this. Now, I note that we don’t appear to have the regulatory impact statement (RIS) on the table at the moment, but, from memory, in that RIS, it did say that there was no robust, evidential basis for this bill.

So this is another action that this Government is taking to remove the rights of workers, with no evidential basis, just because they want to make the situation more difficult for them. It’s very frustrating to be talking, again, on another bill which doesn’t appear to be looking forward towards better employment relationships between employers and employees and trade unions—where there is no evidential basis for it. It is in line with other changes that this Government has brought to the House, like the changes that we saw recently on pay equity—cutting 33 pay equity claims; reintroducing 90-day trials; subsequent and following on from each other, effective cuts to the minimum wage, changes to the health and safety Act; the changes to the Holidays Act to reduce the rights of part-time workers; restrictions on joining collective agreements for those at charter schools; changes to make it easier for people to be considered contractors; fair pay agreements being repealed. I could go on.

This Government has consistently attacked the rights of workers. This bill is an example of that. And again—and I have said this so many times in the House—this bill is potentially, and I think clearly, against our international obligations. We do have free-trade agreements with the EU and with the UK that prohibit making workers’ rights and making labour rights worse under those agreements. So I think the Government would need to report on this as part of those free-trade agreements. Also, additionally, it is likely that this is against our International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions, as well.

To what end? Who was calling for this? Why do we need a bill that goes so far that it would prohibit people from actually taking a small action in favour of their collective negotiations, as opposed to the full removal of labour? Why, even if you’re going to introduce this bill, would you not consider the inherent unfairness on the arbitrary percentage that you put in place? So I think that should be removed, and I’ve said before that I think we should introduce an amendment and allow the Government to rectify this, even though we just disagree strongly with this bill, and clarification that things like wearing a badge and a T-shirt shouldn’t be considered a partial strike.

I think this will lead to negative employment relations in New Zealand. It’s another attack following so many that I’ve outlined on workers’ rights. It’s a sad day for industrial relations in this country. I cannot commend this bill to the House. I encourage those on the other side of the House to look to the huge number of submitters who oppose this bill and change their mind about once again reducing the rights of workers in this Parliament.

I rise with pride to support the Employment Relations (Pay Deductions for Partial Strikes) Amendment Bill. It is a very simple principle in life: you get paid for the work you do. The work you do is a full day’s work, not a partial day’s work, and that is how it should be. To stand here and say, “Oh, no, businesses don’t get impacted.”—well, I’m proud to stand here on behalf of the businesses and employers of this country who’ve had to put up with partial strikes disrupting their businesses. That causes real disruption. And giving an example, a speaker opposite mentioned the fact that—I couldn’t believe this statement—“partial strikes don’t affect productivity.” Well, I’m just thinking of a situation whereby if you were a dairy farmer, what happens if they don’t milk the last row of cows? That creates a situation. What are they going to do, wait till the morning? That is absolutely one of the most ridiculous statements I have ever heard. So I just want you to remember: a full day’s work equals a full day’s pay. We want to make sure that everyone gets a fair day’s pay. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to draw on the comments of my colleague Camilla Belich and talk about where the context of this legislation lies. In the time of this Government, we’ve seen the end of the idea of fair pay agreements, which were just, after all, industry standards, where people could opt in and they could pay an amount that the whole industry was paying, so that employers who were paying less weren’t actually benefited by that. We have had minimum wage increases that are well below what was delivered under Labour. We have had minimum wages for disabled people abandoned. We are having a look at contractors again, because “Oh no, we can’t possibly look after people in that precarious state.” We are having the median wage for migrant workers, gone. We’ve got personal grievance rights being undermined. We’ve got pay equity absolutely gutted, a whole lot of women missing out. And we have had a zero offer to our teacher-aides.

That’s what this Government exchanged for—what? A promise of 20 bucks a week—maybe, if you’re lucky—if you’re one of those low-paid workers. And I just heard my colleague Grant McCallum, in the Government, say that he was glad to be there on behalf of employers. Well, Grant McCallum, we’re actually here not just for employers. We’re here for all New Zealanders, and—

Carl Bates: You’re never here for employers!

HELEN WHITE: We’re absolutely here for all New Zealanders, and I was an employer, and we are here for all New Zealanders. What I want to talk about is my example, which I raised at one point with the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety and I’m going to raise it again here, because it demonstrates the issue that we have before us in a very real way. I worked for the bus drivers up in Auckland and they had a really low wage, those bus drivers, because we had a contracting model which meant that the councils were always going to the lowest possible bidder on those contracts, because they had very little option, because there weren’t things like the fair pay agreements. So they had to bid on lower wages for the work.

Who missed out? The workers, every single time. Those wages went down, and down, and down. It got ridiculous. I remember walking into a meeting and these bus drivers had split shifts. Those split shifts meant that they stayed in their bus shelter for four or five hours, unpaid. How many of us would do that on minimum wage or just above? Those workers took action. They decided that they were going to issue a strike notice, because they had to as essential workers. So they issued that strike notice and they said that they would take their toilet breaks. That’s what they said. And you know what that bus company did? It decided to lock them out for that. In fact, public opinion turned at that point, because it was really demonstrated how put upon those workers were, when they couldn’t even take their toilet breaks, and when their boss thought that it was OK to lock them out for that, for taking toilet breaks. What this law does is it means that people who take their toilet breaks now, they could have a proportionate reduction, or they could have 10 percent deducted from their wages for doing so. So there’s an additional tool for an employer in that situation.

We set up a regime of strikes and lockouts that’s regulated with essential industry notices, etc., to provide some balance, to allow strikes in an orderly fashion. We did that a long time ago in this country and I’m proud of it. We made a good set of rules based on the fact that we understood where the power lay in this situation. We know where the power lies. And yet I have my friend across the House saying he’s here on behalf of employers. Well, we are here on behalf of all New Zealanders, and we need to make sure that the rules are right so that people in this country can pay for the price of things like butter and cheese that are going up and up.

This Government said that it was going to address the cost of living crisis, and what’s it doing? It’s making our poorest employees pay. It’s petty. It’s short-sighted. It means we end up in a country with a whole lot of people in the poverty trap, a whole lot of people who can’t pay for their groceries because when they take their toilet breaks, they’re going to have 10 percent taken off their very low wages because this Government prioritises the people who employ them. That’s the case. Prove me wrong. Because that happened to people; they got locked out for that, and now they can have their wages reduced. And what it will end up with is more polarisation. It’s absolutely right. People will go on strike. They will have enough, and fair enough. There will be more polarisation, more loss of productivity, because they cannot even take any action. I haven’t even got on to freedom of speech. Maybe in a future speech. Thank you.

A fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work: I think that’s what most Kiwis want in their labour market. Actually, that’s what we have in New Zealand’s employment relations framework—ever since the 2000s. Our framework is all about engaging in good faith, having fair processes, and having respect for employers’ and employees’ rights. The Employment Relations (Pay Deductions for Partial Strikes) Amendment Bill is essentially about making sure that there is a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. And if you take some time off to strike, well, we’ll deduct your wages—

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan: What about badges? What about work to rule?

DAN BIDOIS: Yeah. I’ve heard from that side about badges and T-shirts. Let me tell you a story: I used to work for $6 an hour in a supermarket, and I’ll tell you what, most supermarkets, like most businesses out there, don’t get involved in politics because they know that their customers don’t always agree with them. So when their employees are going around with their T-shirts, with their own political activisms, they don’t know that, actually, it does offend a lot of customers, and, therefore, customers may choose to shop elsewhere. That affects productivity, and it may mean that you work as hard as you can but if you don’t get the sales generated, then that is actually affecting your productivity.

This is a really good bill. It’s a good bill that is consistent with the framework of employment relationships that I think most New Zealanders want in there. I commend this bill to the House.

This bill, along with all of the other employment relations type bills brought by this Government, is quite simply an attack on the rights of working New Zealanders. But it’s not just an attack on the rights of working Kiwis; it’s doing it during a cost of living crisis that hurts so much. We have a Government that is telling us that they are going for growth; that they are, effectively, putting more money in the pockets of New Zealanders—this is what they’re claiming, on the face of it. But with this legislation, along with a number of others, they are doing the antithesis: they are taking the power away from workers. They are making a power imbalance in our industrial relations, and they are capitalising on that without even thinking through what the win is. There is no evidence, right throughout the regulatory impact statement, that this bill will have one iota of difference on productivity or on working. It is simply designed to be able to intimidate workers so that they work longer hours for less money in a cost of living crisis. That’s the simplicity of it. That’s all it is.

This bill is on top of already scrapping fair pay agreements, where we have industry-wide standards and a bottom floor for bus drivers, for example. It is on top of reinstating 90-day trials. It is on top of a party that voted wage theft was not, in fact, theft. It’s on top of wiping 33 pay equity claims in already underpaid sectors, some of those sectors are impacted again by this bill. Those 33 sectors are still reeling from the impact of the pay equity legislation; the bill itself was only made available in the last few days to actually look at what the bill does. And now we have a second reading of a bill that will, effectively, mean working to rule or wearing a badge or a T-shirt in your workplace enables the employer to deduct 10 percent of that worker’s wages.

Now, the deep irony here, which I hope is not lost, is that we have a party that is behind a lot of this assault on workers’ rights, and that is the ACT Party. The irony is that the ACT Party turned up in this House, wearing their lapel badges with “ACT” on them. In fact, their leader was reprimanded time and time again for continuing to act against a Speaker’s ruling, where party political badges were not allowed to be worn within this House. So, in my view, what is good for the goose is good for the gander. Why is it appropriate for this bill to prevent workers from wearing a union T-shirt or wearing a badge in terms of their collective bargaining rights, whereas the ACT Party thinks they have the right to wear their own badges in this House?

While we’re on that point, I think it’s important to highlight the deep, I guess, irony—is that the right word?—or maybe contradiction of reasoning here. Because we have a party that’s also very strong on individual freedoms: freedom of speech and freedom of expression. I’d be really interested to know what their mates in the Free Speech Union think that they are voting for a bill that prevents workers from wearing a T-shirt or a badge in their workplace. I would think that goes right against those abilities for individuals to exercise their rights for freedom of expression. That one seems to have been completely overlooked by those who were supporting this bill.

I think that goes to the heart of this bill. It’s not about principle; it’s about undermining workers’ rights, and giving a power advantage to those employers. That is deeply concerning. It is deeply concerning because what will happen in New Zealand as a result of this is that we will see more strikes. We will see workers who are enabled to do partial strikes, like work to rule or wear a T-shirt, take full strike action, and that is where productivity does get hit. When you have an entire sector striking like our doctors or our nurses—or probably soon our teachers, we’ll see—that does impact upon productivity, because we have parents having to take time off work, we have people unable to see a doctor and taking time off work. Those are the real ways that productivity is impacted upon. So by taking away the ability for partial strikes, you are actually having a bigger impact upon productivity. So there’s no thought that has gone through that at all.

The point I’d also like to make is that a lot of these professions impacted by this legislation—for example, nurses. If nurses work to rule, people will quite simply not get medical attention and get ill. Many of the nurses in Hutt Hospital, for example, have to work extra hours every single day just to make sure the hospital keeps running, just to make sure that New Zealanders get the medical attention they need. If you have an ability here to dock their pay by 10 percent if they work to rule, that is unfair. That is unfair to workers who already work incredibly hard to make sure things keep on operating.

I have yet to hear one good reason from those members opposite as to what is the point of this bill. What does it achieve? If this Government stands for productivity, if this Government actually stands for increasing wages for New Zealanders and putting more money in their pocket, why is it that we see bills time after time brought to this House that undermine the rights and the working capacity of New Zealanders? It is those who are already underpaid that are under incessant attack by this Government to find extra money to pay for a Budget that they can’t clearly quite add up in total. This bill is an absolute insult to workers and it will make life harder for working Kiwis. What we will see is it’s not fair.

In fact, I’d like to conclude by looking at that regulatory impact statement. If there was any evidence that this bill is not backed by evidence, it’s right there. I encourage anyone to take a look at it. The regulatory impact statement fails to meet quality assurance standards, it has absolutely no qualitative data, and it relies completely on anecdotal and historical examples. It makes untested assumptions and it completely fails to outline how the Government intends to meet its Treaty of Waitangi obligations. We support that view. That’s not even the Labour Party saying that in a differing view; that is the view of the independent review panel that is assessing the regulatory impact statement. That’s how bad this bill is. In fact, I’d like to quote it, because I have time: “Neither the number of partial strikes and full strikes, [nor the] number of person days lost, show any clear pattern in relation to the ability of employers to make … deductions [during] partial strikes.”

If there is no clear evidence that the previous law caused a problem, why on earth are we now reversing it? It’s because it’s on the tick-list of ACT and it’s been agreed to further undermine the rights of working Kiwis. The gall of it is that they do it in a cost of living crisis. When people are having to pay nine bucks or more for a pound of butter to be able to do some baking at home, they take it upon themselves to say, “You can’t wear a T-shirt or a badge and you need to work to rule, or deduct 10 percent out of your pay.” It’s designed to intimidate and undermine workers’ rights and it is an absolute travesty because there is no evidence here. It is not about evidence; it is about ideology.

In 2018, when Labour amended the Employment Relations Act to remove pay deductions for partial strikes, we did so to restore balance in the workplace. We recognised that industrial action is a fundamental right and we understood that partial strikes are a legitimate and proportionate way for workers to express dissatisfaction without resorting to a full withdrawal of labour. It is a good, healthy, working relationship that this Government takes to undermine and tip the balance in favour of the other side, and they do it in a cost of living crisis. It’s an absolutely sad piece of legislation that does nothing to achieve any type of productivity or good for New Zealand. I’m ashamed to see it brought to this House.

Look, I rise to support the Employment Relations (Pay Deductions for Partial Strikes) Amendment Bill, because this is about bringing balance back to employment relations. That’s what we’re all about on this side of the House: common sense and practicality.

As the member said, this is about driving productivity. Partial strikes usually involve someone turning up to work and refusing to take part in key parts of the job, and, of course, that’s really disruptive. Under these changes, employers have the ability to respond to partial strikes proportionately. It will encourage fair negotiations and reduce prolonged disruptions. This is fair and balanced.

As has already been stated, if you do a fair day’s work, you should get a fair day’s pay. But if you don’t do a full day’s work, proportionate deductions should be balanced. This bill aligns with other jurisdictions—what they’re doing in Australia and the UK. Of course, in the Public Service, healthcare and education are really disrupted when we have partial strikes, and this can lead to delayed treatment, and of course disruptions in the classroom.

Employees, of course, should retain the right to bring meaningful industrial action, but this change is about balance and fairness and returning the law to how it was, which worked—rebalancing rights and consequences and incentivising negotiations and minimising disruptions. So I commend this bill to the House.