Land Transport Management Amendment Bill

I seek leave for the Committee of the whole House on the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill to have the power to consider and, if it thinks fit, adopt the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 211.

Madam SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that course being followed? There is objection.

I move, That it be an instruction to the Committee of the whole House on the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill that it have the power to consider and, if it thinks fit, adopt the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 211. This amendment is outside the current scope of the bill, although the current scope of it does refer in one instance to the Government Superannuation Fund. All that this amendment does is to provide that the rights in respect of Government superannuation of existing employees of Toll NZ who are within the Government Superannuation Fund are unaffected by the change in the ownership of that company. It does not, of course, open up the whole issue of the change in ownership; it is simply about preserving the rights of those existing members of the fund, and follows previous legislation in this form.

Labour forgot about the workers. That is what has happened here. Labour bought back the railway and forgot about the workers. When New Zealand Rail was sold 15 years ago, National did not forget about the workers. We made sure that the people who worked for New Zealand Rail at the time could remain as members of the Government superannuation scheme and keep their entitlements, even though they were transiting into the employment of a purely private sector employer. It was quite straightforward. Workers who had their entitlements kept them because they had had them for a long time under New Zealand Rail. It was part of the deal. There was never any sense of insecurity for those workers.

But Labour forgot about the workers. In fact, it sounds as though Labour found that out only today, after it had signed the deal. Labour goes around the country, bleeding from its liberal heart about how fantastic rail is and about all the good things it will do for New Zealand, but it forgot that the several thousand people who worked for Toll had entitlements under the Government superannuation scheme and that under the deal Labour has done, the workers will lose their entitlements. As of now, they have no entitlements; they are gone. Well, does that not tell us just what Labour is up to?

In fact, it reminds the House about the original motives for the whole deal around rail. The workers certainly know it was nothing to do with the welfare of the employees of Toll, because Labour has shown it was not interested in that. The original motivation for the deal with Toll was purely political. The House may remember Helen Clark at one stage, some 6 months ago, saying the biggest issue in election year was going to be State assets. Then Labour set out on a set of reckless and expensive political moves to try to make State assets an issue. It decided to intervene at the last minute in the Auckland airport sale. That destroyed hundreds of millions of dollars of value. It has made the shares in that blue-chip company virtually unsaleable to anyone except the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. Labour tried to turn that sale into a big political issue, but that failed. It got headlines for a day or two, but those went. So then Helen Clark rang up Michael Cullen, said Labour needed to do something else, and suggested that he buy back rail. On the urgings of the Prime Minister and the chief adviser in his office, Dr Cullen then set out to buy back rail. The result of that is the expenditure of about $1 billion of taxpayers’ capital today—about $1 billion.

From the way that the Government has gone about this particular purchase, one would think that capital was endless. Well, it is not. The New Zealand Labour Government cannot put enough classrooms on the site of schools in Queenstown, near my electorate, because it says it does not have enough money, but it can find $1 billion at short notice, when the economy is turning down, to buy back New Zealand rail.

Gerry Brownlee: Unbelievable.

Hon BILL ENGLISH: It is unbelievable. The motivation was purely political. The Government is trying to dress it up now in terms such as sustainability and the enhancement of public transport. The fact is that the Government does not have any long-term plans for either of those things. The purchase of New Zealand rail, or Toll, does not change the fundamental fact that it will still need to be subsidised. As my leader pointed out today, the trains are coloured red, partly because Labour wants the advertising but also because that is the colour of the ink that will flow through the Government’s books as either Labour or National—whichever one is the next Government—struggles hard to recoup some of the taxpayers’ dollars that have been spent.

When Dr Cullen was sitting down with his open cheque book with Mr Paul Little on the other side of the desk, he forgot about the workers because he was so focused on giving Toll Rail everything it wanted for this particular asset—an asset that was not performing very well. The workers have every right to feel aggrieved, because Dr Cullen, instead of worrying about their entitlements and their security, was sitting there with an open cheque book and what happened? Well, he wrote out the cheque that Toll asked him to write out, and it became bigger last night. Last night, in the run-up to the deadline, the Government decided to shell out another $18 million on top of the $840 million or so for the assets and the debt that it has already shelled out—another $18 million to actually buy out of a promise it had made in the original deal. In the original deal the Government told Toll that it could have rent-free access to particular warehouses around the rail system, and that it could have cut prices on our rail system for the Toll-owned trucking company. Having made that undertaking earlier on, Dr Cullen yesterday spent $18 million to $20 million on buying out of that promise.

That adds up to a figure that is getting towards $900 million for the purchase of New Zealand rail.

Sue Moroney: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The motion being debated here is specific, and I believe that the speaker is going well wide of that motion. The motion is about a Supplementary Order Paper, and I ask you, Mr Deputy Speaker, to direct the member to stick to the debating point.

Gerry Brownlee: That is an interesting intervention from a Government that is clearly embarrassed by the fact that the Supplementary Order Paper is here at all. I read it earlier this morning, and it is entirely consistent with the whole purchase, as Mr English is pointing out. The member across the other side of the House does not seem to understand that if there had not been a purchase, if there had not been neglect of the workers, and if there had not been a failure in the negotiations around this particular purchase or initiative by the Government—not that it is a great initiative, I have to say—then we would not be here having this debate. So it is perfectly reasonable that the House consider why this Supplementary Order Paper has to be here.

After all, the sale is a straight commercial sale—or so we thought. But now we find out that the entitlements those workers have had for literally 15 years have, somehow, been taken off the table. None of those workers right now have the cover they were guaranteed by a National Government 15 years ago. Michael Cullen has taken it away from them. This is about putting it back on the table—about making it legal for the scheme of arrangement that was put in place in 1993 to continue. To suggest somehow that there should be no recital of the history, that there should be no consideration of the negotiation, and that there should be no questioning of the initial decision by the Government to make the purchase is an utter nonsense.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I thank Mr Brownlee, and I thank Sue Moroney for raising the matter. I ask the Hon Bill English to continue. I tend to agree with Mr Brownlee.

Hon BILL ENGLISH: The point is pretty obvious. If the Government is doing a transaction with Toll, then the interests of the workers, one would have thought, would be something that the Labour Government would take into account. [Interruption] That is the point I was coming to. What about all the protections Labour says it has put in place as it goes around the country—all the things it says it has done for workers? It has passed vulnerable worker legislation and flexible working hours legislation, and it goes around telling everyone it has put up the minimum wage and has encouraged collective bargaining. It has had 9 years to put in place protections for workers, yet here we have a large group of workers, some of whom are well paid but many of whom are not very well paid, who are suddenly vulnerable not to a transaction that someone else is doing but to one that the Government is intimately involved with. That tells us something, does it not?

Whenever the Government is talking about other businesses, it is very keen to make sure that workers have widespread protection, and businesses and other workers simply have to carry the costs that are imposed by more legislative entitlements. But when the Government is doing its own business transactions, it forgets about the workers and overlooks their welfare and security, then, at the last minute—or after the last minute—expects Parliament to turn round and correct the fact that it has paid no attention to the people who are the heart of the Toll business. I invite the next Government speaker to get up and tell us why the protections that Labour says it has put in place over the last 9 years for workers’ entitlements around business sales did not apply in this case, because that is the only reason we need this legislation. I would have thought, if there are issues here about vulnerability and entitlements, that the frameworks Labour has put in place would protect these people.

The workers in Toll have learnt the hard way that Labour has long forgotten about their genuine interests. This Government spends more time on trying to talk about who does National’s polls than it does on the facts that the economy is turning down, that people are being sacked every day because businesses are running out of money, that the Government is the only part of the economy that is actually still growing, and that oil prices are $140 a barrel. And in that sense we are with the Greens. This is something on which we do agree with the Greens. The Government’s allies got up today and said it was time that Ministers got out of their BMWs and found out what was going on in the real world. Well, I bet the workers of Toll who have built up 25 and 30 years of superannuation entitlements that are now gone would also like Annette King, the Minister of Transport, to get out of her BMW and find out what is going on in the real world. [Interruption] Well, the Minister should get up and tell us. She is the person responsible, as Minister of Justice, for the Electoral Finance Act—an Act that will stop these workers campaigning for their rights unless they register as a third party, because they would have to spend over $12,000. Annette King should get up and tell us why she should be cruising around in a BMW and be so out of touch with what is going on in the real world that she has supported the Labour Government in buying back New Zealand’s rail company and leaving the workers stranded.

The Government has said it encourages savings and looks after workers. It has deserted workers, it has forgotten their interests, and it has put their savings at risk.

I think the points raised by Mr English should be well understood by the wider public, because here we have a Government that, literally for months, has been running around the country saying how wonderful it is that it is buying back New Zealand rail. It has neglected the fact that New Zealand rail was actually not going anywhere any time soon; New Zealand rail was always going to be in New Zealand. Nobody who was operating it could pack it up and take it away. The previous owners had no choice other than to continue operating it. The problem was that the Government, in taking over the rail track, decided to put a huge value on it.

Today we heard Michael Cullen crowing about the fact that the railways were bought for a dollar and are now valued at over $10 billion. But that is the problem. You see, poor old Toll was asked to pay a rental on the tracks that reflected that $10 billion value. [Interruption] Those members laugh at me for saying “poor old Toll”, but that is exactly what the Government did, and I will come to that in a minute. Toll was encouraged, or required, to pay a track rental that reflected a return on that $10 billion. They said: “We can’t do it. We can’t make the rail system in New Zealand work if we have to pay rent on those tracks when you’ve put a value of $10 billion on them.” They sold them for a dollar, the Government made them $10 billion in value, and Toll said: “What are you doing? This is not going to work.” Negotiations went on and on, and finally the Government said: “Poor old Toll. We have to help them out. We’ve put them in a dreadful position so we’ll make them an offer they can’t refuse.” They started talking about the numbers. We heard it would be $600 million, then $700 million. Toll said it was worth a billion. These numbers get so big that we almost lose sight of what it is. Finally today we heard that $690 million - odd has been paid to Australian shareholders of Toll, because the Government obviously felt sorry for them. There can be no other reason. There will not be one extra train, one extra track, or one extra freight load taken as a result of today’s change in ownership.

All we are seeing today is a change in ownership, a liability back on the New Zealand taxpayer, and, further, a new set of colours for the trains and the rolling stock. Some people unkindly said today that it was the Labour Party colours painted on them. I think Mr Key was far more accurate when he said it was a graphic representation of the ink that will run across the Government’s books as a result of this particular purchase. In fact, the red and the grey livery of the new KiwiRail are the old colours of the Progressive party, which was once here in the House. You see, I think the Government is trying to say that this is a progressive move.

Dr Cullen also said to the House today that he thought that New Zealanders, including Mr Key, might have noticed that the oil price has gone up. Well, we certainly have. But how is that helped by the purchase of this organisation today? The fact is that those trains and those ferries run on diesel, so the one thing that everyone needs to be sure of and needs to know for certain is that as a result of the purchase today, not only will New Zealanders using those services pay more because of the cost of operation but they will pay a lot more because of the cost of capital invested in those businesses—far in excess of what is reasonable and realistic.

Then today the appalling situation arose whereby Dr Cullen said he has just discovered that the superannuation entitlements of many of the workers employed in Toll are suddenly lost. Those workers have had 15 years of protection since that rail company has been in the private sector. It returns to the Government today and those entitlements are lost. So we have this little Supplementary Order Paper being appended to the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill. It is quite out of the scope of that bill but nonetheless it is thrown in there so it can be got though. The question I have for Dr Cullen is this: what would have happened, when he found out about it this morning, if there had not been the happy coincidence of this bill being on the Order Paper this afternoon? The reality is that those people’s entitlements would have sat in abeyance until the Government found a bit of time to try to enact some retrospective legislation to put it right. What it really tells us is just how little the current Government cares about working New Zealanders.

Hon Maurice Williamson: They could have done it in the organised crime bill—that’s next.

GERRY BROWNLEE: My colleague says—if we consider how this process works and what we are talking about here today—the Government could in fact have come to the House with this Supplementary Order Paper and attached it to the Organised Crime (Penalties and Sentencing) Bill, which is next, but that would be too close to home because it is almost an organised crime for the Government to have gone out and spent the money it has on this particular organisation, knowing that it will never be able to make a single penny out of it.

We, of course, will not want to see workers who have served Toll and New Zealand Rail for all that time penalised. That is our record. [Interruption] Darien Fenton over there, one of the doyennes of the union movement in this country, was one of those who in 1993 made the Government aware of the problem—and the National Government did not quibble. There was no quibbling at all. The entitlements that people had accumulated over all those years were simply transferred with them. They were able to stay in the Government Superannuation Fund, as they worked for the successive private entities that owned that organisation. It is such an irony, is it not, I say to Ms Fenton, that we are here in the House today having discovered that a Labour Government was the Government that took those entitlements away from those workers?

There is another bill on the Order Paper that the Government could have attached this particular Supplementary Order Paper to, and that is the Judicial Matters Bill, but that also would have been somewhat of an irony given the extraordinary lack of judgment that the current Government has shown not only in making the purchase in the first place but in failing to recognise the need to protect workers. How many times have we seen Labour members stand up in this House and talk about vulnerable workers? How many times have we heard them talk about the economy not delivering to hard-working New Zealanders, about the benefits of KiwiSaver, and about the minimum wage that should be paid to New Zealanders—all those things that engender the idea that Labour cares deeply about workers in this country? Then Labour has one very clear symbolic opportunity, and it forgets about workers.

What really amuses me is that we know what would have happened here. As they were going through that negotiation, Dr Cullen would have been going down to the Labour caucus room on a Tuesday and giving them a bit of an update on how it was all going, and not one of them—not one of them—would have asked the question: “What about the workers?”. I would have thought Parekura Horomia would say: “Wassup, Dr Cullen?”, but no, nothing—not a squeak, not a murmur, not a mention. So here we are in the House this afternoon having to approve a jacked-up process to try to protect the workers of New Zealand—in particular the workers who have transferred from New Zealand Rail, to Tranz Rail, to Toll Rail, and now to—

Hon Parekura Horomia: Boo hoo!

GERRY BROWNLEE: There is old Parekura Horomia over there, pretending he is crying. He does not care. He did not care through months and months of caucus meetings and Cabinet meetings and Cabinet committee meetings, and then, ultimately, when sitting in the Cabinet room at the top of the Beehive, making the decision. He did not care. Well, we care. We think the workers are entitled to this, but we want to make sure that all New Zealanders know that this is a day that Labour was exposed as being a party that could not give a tuppence about workers in this country.

I think it is important to make clear to those who are listening to the House today just exactly what sort of a position this House has got itself into. When we look at the Government orders of the day, the business before the House, we see that order of the day No. 1 is the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill. So people who were expecting the House to move on to that straight after question time will be surprised to hear that we are having a debate that does not seem related to that legislation at all. That is because Dr Cullen tried to seek leave to stick a very shabby little Supplementary Order Paper, a one-pager, in as part of that bill. He thought he could just come down here, get the leave of the House, and stick in something that, as my colleague Gerry Brownlee says, is not even slightly related to the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill. Actually, as Gerry Brownlee also said, Dr Cullen was exceedingly lucky that that bill was on the Order Paper at all, because the next one down was the Organised Crime (Penalties and Sentencing) Bill, the next one was the Judicial Matters Bill, and the one after that the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill. It could have been that the Toll workers got their superannuation protected through the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill with a Toll Supplementary Order Paper attached to it.

I want to go back and check some of the history of this. I can tell the House that I was around then; I was a member of Cabinet at the time of the sale of New Zealand Rail back in 1993. I was part of the Cabinet that did it. But I want to ask some questions first of all.

Sue Moroney: Disgraceful!

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: “Disgraceful!” says Sue Moroney. That is really interesting. Let me ask Labour a couple of questions. Did Labour vote for the bill that sold New Zealand Rail? There is a good question.

Chris Auchinvole: Did they?

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: I know the answer. Let me just check this, because Sue Moroney said that it was disgraceful. Did Labour vote for the bill that privatised New Zealand Rail? I cannot hear any answers. I will ask the question a third time. Sue Moroney must know. If what went on back in 1993, when we sold New Zealand Rail for $370 million, was so disgraceful, I assume that Labour voted against it. Is that right? I ask Sue Moroney whether Labour voted against the legislation. She has to help me with this one. You see, Labour will not answer the first of the hard questions, because it actually voted for the legislation; it voted for the sale of the railway line.

Now we come to something more interesting. Rodney Hide made a great point, and members should listen to how this works. The Government sold New Zealand Rail for $370 million, and I remember the issue about the workers, their superannuation, and their entitlements. It was a major issue. What is the name of the railway workers’ union? I cannot remember what the acronym is.

Gerry Brownlee: EPMU.

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: No, it is not EPMU. It is the maritime and rail something.

Hon Mark Gosche: The Rail and Maritime Transport Union.

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: The Rail and Maritime Transport Union. I can remember that the union that represented the workers was very, very vociferous at the time. I am interested to note that it has not been heard on this issue. I have not heard the union saying anything on the issue this time. But at the time it said that this would be an outrage to its workers because they would be sold into private hands and would have all those long-service Government superannuation entitlements. We thought that the union was right, and we thought that the point was exactly fair, and stuff was put into the legislation to protect those workers—as it should have been. That was 15 years ago, at the time of privatisation.

Let me go through Rodney Hide’s reasoning today, because I thought this was a cracker. We sold New Zealand Rail for $370 million—that is what the owners bought it for. Then we hear from Winston Peters and Labour that the private sector then took this asset and ran it into the ground. The private sector asset-stripped it, and ran it into the ground. So the private sector bought it for $370 million, then took everything out and ran this thing into being almost a shadow of its former self, until it was almost of no value at all. Does that not beg the question of why one would then buy it back for close to $1 billion? It has been bought for $690 million, plus there is $120 million of debt, so that comes to $810 million, plus there are some other payments to take account of.

Gerry Brownlee: Commercial leases.

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: Yes, the commercial leases, and so on—it is the thick end. Let us go with $900 million. But let me go through the logic of New Zealand First again. We sold it for $370 million, and the private sector then asset-stripped it, tore it to shreds, and made it worth nothing. And the Government is buying it back for $900 million!

Gerry Brownlee: Without the trucking company.

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: That is right. Gerry Brownlee reminds me that the actual jewel in the crown of the business—in fact, the only part of it that is really profitable and a great little bit—is the trucking operation.

Chris Auchinvole: Who got that?

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: Well, Toll has kept that. We have been done over a few times by the Aussies, with the underarm bowling incident and the single aviation market. But we have never been done over by the Aussies like this—they must be back at the headquarters right now in fits of laughter. The question I would like to ask Labour is why this needed to happen at all. Would the railways have just gone away if the Government had not bought it? Would Toll have just said that that was it, that it could not keep doing it, and that it would give up?

Gerry Brownlee: We’ll pack it up.

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: We will pack it up. Well, it might have taken its train set, but it would have been quite a good idea to let it do that. It could have bought some new trains in at a better price, and not paid all the legacy costs surrounding it. So that question really needs to be asked. One could have started “Rail Two”, or whatever one wants to call it, almost straight away, once the Aussies had walked off in a fit of pique. But, no, this Government decided to pay top dollar—actually, when one takes the trucking operation out of it, and everything else, it is more than top dollar. The one thing that Labour keeps crowing about, almost as a sort of mantra, is that it is the party of the workers. If Labour were the party of the workers, it would have been talking to the people from the Rail and Maritime Transport Union and telling them not to worry because it would look after their workers. Labour would have told them that when the deal was done it would make sure that all the entitlements, privileges, and all the stuff that they carry from history, would be protected.

Suddenly we get to the day after the deal is done—it was done yesterday, 30 June, and agreed to as of midnight last night. The big announcement occurs this morning, and suddenly it is a case of “Oh dear!”. Labour voted for the sale to privatise the railways, it openly admitted that an asset worth $370 million had been run into the ground, and then it bought it back for $900 million. And that was without the trucking operation, which was basically everything that was of value in the operation. Suddenly the people whom Labour supposedly represented, the workers, missed out altogether.

I say to the House—and my colleagues Bill English and Gerry Brownlee have made this clear—that we will not stop this; we will not vote against Supplementary Order Paper 211, even though attaching it to a bill like the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill will have people in the future sitting and scratching their heads. People who are looking at legislation in the future will ask what on earth was going on on that day that somehow an instruction to the Committee in respect of a Supplementary Order Paper had to be moved because it was not accepted by leave, it did not comply with any Standing Order in terms of being within the spirit of the original bill. People will ask how that happened.

Hopefully, historians will say that the reason was simple: Labour, in spite of all of its massive dealings in the media, and all of the coverage that Michael Cullen received about what a wonderful idea it was to be buying back the rail operation, had not thought for one minute about the workers at Toll who would be coming into the State sector. It is really important that members of the public and members of the railway union understand that when the National Government privatised the railway back in 1993, it made sure that those privileges, protections, rights, and historic coverage of all of the Government superannuation were covered and protected when it moved to the new entity. Not so the Labour Government: in its race to buy an asset that was not worth even half of what it paid for it, it could have told Toll Holdings that it would give it $370 million, which is basically what was originally paid for it—take it or leave it. I can tell members that Toll would have taken whatever price was going.

The whole sale process is best summarised by one of the best cartoons I have ever seen in the New Zealand Herald. It is a split cartoon—on one side is the Phoenix Mars Lander, and on the other side is a railway train, off the tracks, facing side on, with its wheels fallen off. On the left-hand side we have what the National Aeronautics and Space Administration got for $430 million for the Mars Lander, and over on the right-hand side we have what Dr Cullen got for $690 million.

This is a very symptomatic, shoddy little piece of legislation that shows that Labour thought nothing about workers; and I am surprised at the union: next time I see the Rail and Maritime Transport Union before our select committee, I will be asking its members why they were so vocal at the time when National was looking to privatise, but why we did not hear anything from them in the media about why the Government was not taking count of their privileges, their rights, and their protections. It is just a little too late, a little too little, and very disingenuous.

I remind everybody that today is 1 July. Supplementary Order Paper 211, which was brought to the House by Michael Cullen states that it will affect—and only a Labour Government would do this—“any person who, immediately before 30 June 2008, is employed by the company”, which is Toll NZ. I will come back to that point. So Labour not only forgot about this matter but is doing something about something that happened yesterday.

When Labour members put down patsy questions in the House today, they did not seem to remember, even at that stage, the Toll NZ workers. The Labour member Darien Fenton asked the Minister of Labour what changes to help workers took effect today. Well, National members could have told her that the changes that took effect today would have resulted, if it were not for the cooperation of the House, in the Government Superannuation Fund contributions of thousands and thousands of workers from Toll NZ not continuing.

What sort of Labour Government is this? Its members stand up in this House day after day and claim that Labour is the only party to look after the workers. Well, I have bad news for those members: they seem to look after the Australians better than they look after workers here. After all, as my colleagues say, the Government has happily handed over what we now know is $800 million—$600 million - odd in cash and $180 million of debt—to the Australians. The Australian shareholders are actually very happy that someone is prepared to pay an inflated price for their shareholding in Toll NZ.

Supplementary Order Paper 211 is very interesting. It is supposed to become part of the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill, which I am looking forward to debating. I thought the debate would be centred on the regional fuel tax, all sorts of Government policy statements, and national and regional roading transport project planning, but suddenly we are landed with a Supplementary Order Paper that is quite strange. I will take the public through its provisions. It is to do with ensuring that the Government Superannuation Fund contributions of workers who until yesterday were employed by Toll NZ, but today are employed by KiwiRail, continue.

It is interesting to note the way that the Government will have that happen. New clause 41(1) states that any person employed by the company is “deemed to be an employee in the Government service so long as that person continues to be an employee of the company.” Interesting things happen in Parliament; it is suddenly deemed that for the last 9 years those workers continued to be employees of the Government service rather than employees of a private company! New clause 41(4) states in relation to employees of the company who are contributors to the Government Superannuation Fund that the “controlling authority, in relation to those employees, means the company’s board.” Suddenly, a Crown entity is set up, and the Supplementary Order Paper tells us, apparently, that its board of directors should be treated in the same way as the board of a private company. So, with this piece of paper, people who are actually employees of a private company can be deemed to be employees of a Government service, and a board of a private company can be deemed to be the same as a board of a Crown entity. I wonder who the top advisers are who can dream up changing people’s status with just a simple piece of paper.

On the one hand, Labour members try to blow their own trumpets by claiming that on 1 July all sorts of legislation comes into force—flexible working hours and whatever—and on the other hand they suddenly realise that a quite large number of workers were totally forgotten in all the intense, burning-the-midnight-oil negotiations involving the Minister of Finance and Toll NZ. It is quite interesting to reflect on that, because some commentators have said of Dr Michael Cullen’s role in the “Treelords” negotiations that he is the only member of the Labour team who not only is capable of seeing the overall picture but actually has the mana to pull together all the details and to make sure that the various parts of the machinery fit together. Well, in the light of that compliment—that he is the only Government member who is capable of making sure that every little detail falls into place—one has to ask how he could overlook thousands of employees of Toll NZ.

Another question needs to be raised—and National members will raise it. The Transport and Industrial Relations Committee constantly meets with union delegates, who come in front of the select committee and make statements about their looking after the interests of their members. I wonder what happened to the union representatives from Toll NZ—the ones who looked after the railway workers. Did they remind Dr Michael Cullen? Did they ever raise the issue with the Labour Government? Were they ignored? I would be interested to see a Labour member take a call to enlighten us as to when the omission occurred, and who discovered that the workers were the only ones to be forgotten by the Labour Government during those intense negotiations. Government members always proclaim that they are looking after the workers. I want to know when the omission was discovered, who reminded the Minister of Finance of this huge omission, and how the Labour Government managed to produce the Supplementary Order Paper. Usually, when National members ask for a technical amendment etc. we are told that there is not enough time to put anything together. When the Labour Government wants something done in a hurry, somehow the advisers and the technical draftspeople can always be counted on to put it through.

I say that today is a day of shame for the Labour Government, which claims it is the protector of the workers, because the workers were the ones who were forgotten in this golden handshake deal. The Government is kind to the Australians only, rather than the Toll NZ railway workers. But National will cooperate, because we would not want to see the workers suffer just because the Labour Government forgot about them; we will support Supplementary Order Paper 211.

I move, That the question be now put.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. We are here this afternoon debating the motion on the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill that, under instruction, the Deputy Prime Minister has moved. It is a serious matter that needs worthy attention of the House, particularly when Labour members bestow upon us the view that they are the ones who look after workers’ rights. Well, you have heard some contribution from this side of the House this afternoon, but we would like to make further contribution on Supplementary Order Paper 211, because it is very important. If you could, Mr Deputy Speaker, please look at the Standing Order, I think it is 137(3), to do with moving a closure motion, which states it has to be reasonable to do so.

We have had six calls now on this motion. The last five calls have all been from the National Party. There is no debate occurring on this motion. The National Party has said it supports it, and I would like you to take that into account, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Before you rule, Mr Deputy Speaker, I think there is a very serious principle at stake here, and that principle is the right of the workers to be heard. I know it is a delicious irony that this comes from a National MP, but members of the Government who thump the table time and time again in defence of workers are not prepared to stand up and debate this issue. I think we owe it to the workers of New Zealand to debate this issue fully.

Thank you. Thank you for raising those matters. It is true that this debate is a restricted debate; it is as to whether the Committee should have the power to consider this matter. The debate should not wander too widely. It certainly does not extend to the principles, the objects, or the provisions of the bill that is before the Committee. It is not relevant that all of the speakers after the person who introduced the motion happened to come from one party; it might even show that that party is very interested in this matter.

Thank you for your very well-considered judgment. I initially was not going to take a call on this debate when I came to the House, because, like my colleague Maurice Williamson, I thought I was coming to listen to a very reasoned debate on the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill. But I have sat through these proceedings and I have to say that I am absolutely appalled by what is transpiring here. As I said in the point of order that I raised, it is a delicious irony that it is a National member of Parliament who is standing up to defend the rights of workers in this country. I pose this question to the House: what is the most often trumpeted core business of the Labour Party?

David Bennett: What is it?

BRIAN CONNELL: It is, supposedly, looking after the rights of workers.

Chris Auchinvole: Does it do that?

BRIAN CONNELL: Well, it did not do that. Here we have a test of Labour’s integrity, a test of whether it will actually put its money where its mouth is and protect the workers. At the last hour—in fact, at the last moment—we have in this House a Supplementary Order Paper trying to protect the superannuation entitlements of Toll’s workers because the Government, in its haste to buy this organisation, forgot about a fundamental principle, the protection and the rights of workers in this country. My colleague Pansy Wong not only stated that the Government had forgotten about the rights of New Zealand workers but also claimed—I think not quite rightly—that it had actually looked after the rights of Australian workers. I take issue with that, because it did not even look after the rights of Australian workers—only of Australian shareholders. This money has gone straight into the pockets of Australian shareholders, and the Government says to hell with New Zealand workers. That is what I am so appalled at, and why I felt compelled to get on my feet and take a call.

My colleague Gerry Brownlee also gave some background as to why this Supplementary Order Paper had been introduced to the House at the eleventh hour. Simply, the Government had valued the rail network at something like $10 billion. The board of Toll must have looked at their business and asked what type of return on asset it was getting in New Zealand. The answer would have been, with that asset backing, a very poor return. So the decision at board level would have been to try to sell the business. But I can imagine the conversation then going along the lines that it was all very well to want to sell the business, but they just would not find anyone silly enough to buy it.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Connell, you have had almost 4 minutes of introductory remarks. I will say again that this is a procedural motion, and it is a narrow debate. The only matter under debate is whether the Committee should have the power to examine and adopt this Supplementary Order Paper. It is not about the rights or wrongs of superannuation and it is not about the purchase of KiwiRail. Those matters can come into it in a small way, but the thrust of your argument, which is undermined a bit by the willingness of the Opposition to actually support this motion, should be why the Committee should not have the power to examine this Supplementary Order Paper.

BRIAN CONNELL: I thank you for your guidance, Mr Deputy Speaker. In my defence, I say that I wrote down points that were raised in the debate. I was really just expressing some opinion on those points, which you have actually already ruled on. So I think, without questioning your decision, that I am within the Standing Orders in raising some of these issues.

With your agreement, Mr Deputy Speaker, I will just finish the point I was making, then address this issue in particular. My issue was whether the board could find an organisation that would buy Toll. I think the debate that must have gone on in the Toll boardroom was that they thought they knew a party that might be gullible enough to do so. When that proposition was put to the Government, I think it was in such haste to sign up that it forgot about the fundamental rights of the workers in this country—that is, the protection of their entitlements, which for 15 years had been enshrined in legislation. I think that is fairly fundamental.

I raise this issue because I think it goes to the heart of public confidence in the Government. I say that for this reason: if the Government purports to have as its main platform the protection of workers and workers’ rights, and then falls at the first hurdle, I ask what confidence the people of New Zealand can have in a Government that would do that.

With those things said, my contribution was simply to make those points. As I said earlier, I was appalled at what I was hearing. I thank you for the opportunity to make those points, because I think another member of the National Party had to get up and argue to protect the rights of workers, because the Government has been found woefully lacking on this particular issue.

I move, That the question be now put.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Not quite. I take it, Mr Bennett, that you will talk about why the Committee should have the power to consider the Supplementary Order Paper and, if it thinks fit, adopt it. All future contributions must relate to that, or I will take the question.

We have been asked to consider a Supplementary Order Paper that has been put forward by the Minister of Finance at a very late hour in the transaction of the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill.

Chris Auchinvole: Very sudden.

DAVID BENNETT: Yes, it is a very sudden Supplementary Order Paper, coming before the House just today. Mr Deputy Speaker, you are quite right to say we need to debate the relevance of that Supplementary Order Paper and whether it should be debated or should in fact be passed through the House today. The reason why it is so important to debate whether we accept Supplementary Order Paper 211 relates to the nature of what it represents.

Chris Auchinvole: What is the nature?

DAVID BENNETT: This Supplementary Order Paper represents a mistake made by the Minister of Finance. The Supplementary Order Paper tries to rectify a mistake made by the person whom the Labour Government entrusts with the financial management of this country. It deals with the mistakes of the Labour Government.

There are many mistakes of the Labour Government with regard to the Toll purchase, and we can go through them at length. But the mistake we are looking at today is a fundamental mistake.

Chris Auchinvole: Who does it affect?

DAVID BENNETT: It is fundamental, in that it affects the workers of Toll. It affects all workers in New Zealand as well, because it shows that the Minister of Finance does not consider their needs to be imperative in any deal that he does. He is not concerned about New Zealand’s workers. He has said on TV that he just wants to hold on to power. That is what he is about. So it is important that we debate Supplementary Order Paper 211 in this House and that we continue to debate it, because it represents the real intention of the Minister of Finance.

Chris Auchinvole: Or a lack of intention.

DAVID BENNETT: Yes—or a lack of intention. The Minister’s intention is not to do what is best for New Zealand; his intention is to do what he thinks will win him another election.

The Minister of Finance has made a big mistake because, in trying to buy back an asset that did not need to be bought back, he has made a few fundamental errors. He did not think about the debts that he would incur. He did not think about the fact that he was giving preferential rights to certain land to Toll’s trucking operation, a decision that he has now had to reverse again. He did not think about the fact that he is leaving the workers out in the cold—which, again, he is trying to reverse with this Supplementary Order Paper. What does that tell us about our Minister of Finance? It tells us that he is not a very smart business person. It tells us that as soon as he walked in the door of Toll Holdings to negotiate with it, that company was licking its lips. That is why we need to look at this Supplementary Order Paper.

This Supplementary Order Paper shows the deficiencies of the Minister of Finance. It shows the deficiencies of the Labour Government as well, because Labour is a party that is based on the notion that it knows better than anyone else. It thinks that it knows what is right for New Zealanders. The Labour Government does not give New Zealanders the ability to make their own decisions in life. Labour takes New Zealanders’ money and then distributes it. It redistributes that money under its guiding ambitions.

Sue Moroney: Stick to the point of the debate.

DAVID BENNETT: The point we are talking about is that Labour entrusted the Minister of Finance to undertake a major commercial deal, which he stuffed up, and this Supplementary Order Paper tries to deal with his stuff-ups. That is what we are doing here today.

We need to debate this Supplementary Order Paper more in this House this afternoon, because that is the only way that the public will understand what a failure we have for a Minister of Finance. He has put our country in the position of having some of the highest interest rates and the lowest growth rates in the world, and of having an economy that is going down the tubes at a great rate of knots. That is what we have had from the Minister of Finance. The Minister of Finance does not know what to do. He is useless at these financial matters, and this Supplementary Order Paper is a practical example of his ineffectiveness. So we need to debate it more. We should be debating it all day and night, because it shows the lack of credibility of the financial management of the Labour Government.

Labour has been going around for many years saying it is there for the workers and is there for the economy, but the reality is that it has just been sitting on something that has been, in terms of pressures in the international economic environment, a reasonably good time. Now that we are going into tough times, we see the deficiencies and Labour’s lack of economic management. Should we entrust the finances of the rail company into the hands of 60 ex-unionists? I ask whether we should we do that, because this Supplementary Order Paper is what we get when we do that. We are having to do deal after deal, day after day, to try to rectify the mistakes that those members made when they were signing a commercial agreement. The reason they made those mistakes is that none of them have ever had to negotiate a commercial agreement in their lives. None of them have had to go out there and make money in business. They do not know what it is like, they never will know what it is like, and they cannot be entrusted to run a country when they do not know the reality of commercial management.

Today we are seeing the result of that. What more do we need to show us that than to see the Minister of Finance have to come into this House, put forward a Supplementary Order Paper, and say that he forgot about the workers, that he did not look after the people who voted him in, and that he has made a mistake in the biggest commercial negotiation he has done this year. He made a mistake. He has had to come to this House to have it rectified. It is important that we debate it and that we debate it strongly, because it shows the ability of the Minister of Finance.

Chris Auchinvole: Or lack of ability.

DAVID BENNETT: He has a lack of ability in commercial matters, and the people of New Zealand have seen that. The people of New Zealand are voting against this Government in the polls because of the economic conditions they are now in. They know that the Minister of Finance has not managed this economy, they know that tough economic conditions are coming their way for the next couple of years, and they know that Labour has no idea about economic management. They know that Labour is at fault in relation to the conditions we have, and they know that they cannot trust the Minister of Finance.

What more do we need to show that our lack of trust is justified than for the Minister of Finance to have to come into this House and ask for his mistakes to be rectified? We could want nothing more from the Minister of Finance in order to show us how incompetent he is at his job than for him to have to come to this House and show that he has made a huge mistake on the biggest deal he has done this year.

I move, That the question be now put.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The recent transaction by the Government is worth around $800 million. There has not been one speaker from the Government on whether—

Hon Members: It’s not about that.

Hon TAU HENARE: Actually, I thought there was supposed to be quiet when we have a point of order, for goodness’ sake!

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yes, that is true.

Hon TAU HENARE: Supplementary Order Paper 211 is important, and it is an important issue as to whether we should allow the Committee to deal with the matter, or whether it should be dealt with in another forum. That is all that this debate is about, and I think it is incumbent on the House to listen to as many people as possible; members opposite should not just sit here and push things through willy-nilly without any debate. It is called the House of Representatives, and this side, certainly, is about representing those people whom, maybe, the Government does not want to represent. We should have our fair share and our fair say on an issue the cost of which is going up and up.

I thank the member for raising that point. I have considered all of those issues as we have gone through the debate. We have had six speakers, and throughout the debate there has been some encouragement for them to stick to the instruction that is before the House, which is that the Committee should have the power to consider this matter, adopt it, etc. They were not warnings; they were just guidance to bring members back to discussing those issues. All of the members who have spoken have gone much wider. I think that three members, now, have asked that the question be now put, and I think that the right place to discuss the issues that you and others have raised is, in fact, in the Committee. So I accept what Mr Parekura Horomia has asked for. The question is that the question be now put.

Motion agreed to.

In Committee

Part 1 Amendments to Land Transport Management Act 2003