TARIANA TURIA (Co-Leader—Māori Party) : Tēnā tātou katoa. I think, after that exchange in the House, I might go into business myself and provide a bit of training for transformation in terms of less violent ways of speaking.

First of all, I want to commend and congratulate Sue Kedgley and the Green Party on this bill. Albert Einstein once said that not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted, and such might be a great subtitle for the Employment Relations (Flexible Working Hours) Amendment Bill. I want to make it clear that our support is not based on the UK legislation. Our support is based on quality of life for whānau. How do we count the value of nurturing children, the vital role of parenting, and the significance of family life? How do we account for the status we give to the health and safety of our children, and to their sense of being loved, valued, and actively participating in the families and societies into which they are born?

Well, the Unicef Innocenti Research Centre’s international league tables published earlier this year give us a pretty good clue of how much family life means to New Zealanders. Asked how often their parents eat a main meal with them around the table, only 64.4 percent of 15-year-olds in this fine land answered “several times a week”, compared with an OECD average of 79.4 percent. Asked how often their parents spend time just talking to them, only 51.9 percent of our 15-year-olds said “several times a week”, compared with an average of 62.8 percent. How sad is that? For eating a meal and talking with one’s parents, we are scoring in the lower half of the league tables. It is like that Tegel chicken ad, where the only way that the dad can be identified is by the name tag that he wears on his shirt.

This House must face up to the reality of people’s lives, where poverty has confronted our families in levels of severity that make every day difficult. We must face up to a reality where domestic violence has become normalised, where our health is compromised, and where the addictions of gambling, alcohol abuse, and drug abuse are crippling. But we have been there before, and we can—and we will—overcome. Our transformation depends on all of us stepping up to the mark and restoring to our whānau the capacity for making a difference in our own homes. It will not come from the hand of Government and it will not come from the directive of the Minister, but it will come from us.

That is the first clear reason why we in the Māori Party support the Employment Relations (Flexible Working Hours) Amendment Bill. The central importance of whānau, and our responsibilities and rights to care for our own, must be preserved. Another reality of today’s profile is that working families are now the norm; the single-largest family type is couples where both parents work. But it is also clear that many, many parents find it difficult to juggle paid work and parenting. I can certainly relate to that as a young mother who had to go to work—not because I wanted to but because I had to. The Ministry of Social Development’s Work, Family and Parenting study in 2006 looked at work-to-home spillover effects. The vast majority of people surveyed—61 percent—felt that they had missed out on some of the rewarding aspects of being a parent because of work, and I can relate to that too. You know, I would love to have seen the first time my children walked and the first time they did a whole lot of things that, unfortunately, they did while I was at work, and one of the rare downsides in my life as an MP today is missing out on the wonderful richness of being a day-to-day nanny to my mokopuna.

This sadness is something I share with all my colleagues in the Māori Party, MPs and staff alike; our choice to be doing the work that we are doing now comes with an enormous cost, day in and day out. The centre for midwifery and women’s health research stated the other view, in one submission from a part-time working mum with young children. She said: “I feel very privileged … and it would be great for other parents to have the same open-minded, guilt-free opportunity. As they say … they’re not young for ever, and the greatest gift we can ever give to our kids is time.” That is the greatest gift indeed.

For whānau Māori, the option of work flexibility would be a huge advance. For so many of our families, the pressure of inadequate income and the challenge to meet basic requirements such as decent housing, sufficient clothing, adequate furniture, medical expenses, dental care, electricity, and an ample food supply gives very little choice about the concept of work and life balance. Three particular points must be emphasised here. Firstly, the New Zealand Living Standards report alerts us to a reality in which 27 percent of all Pasifika families and 17 percent of all Māori families are reported as suffering severe hardship, and we know that many of those families work two or three jobs just to survive. Choice and relative bargaining power are luxuries in such a life. The second reality is that of all two-parent families in which one parent is working, 28 percent are in poverty. The third reality is to emphasise the advice from the Children’s Commissioner, Cindy Kiro, that although employers and employees benefit from the flexibility of working hours, so too do the children. This bill is about support for their rights, their needs, and their well-being. Flexible working times can assist in the relentless juggling of work, family, and financial pressures. An environment in which home life is valued and flexibility is freely negotiated will result in more productive and healthy outcomes for all.

I want also to focus on the benefits that businesses can achieve from this change. From the flood of letters that has swamped our offices, one would think that every New Zealander lived to work, loved to work, and longed to work without having another thought for children or family life. It seems a long way off from the everyday lot of my constituency, who tell me about being constantly overloaded and tired, with drooping morale, sick kids, and chronic stress. I do not hear a lot of joy expressed about the freedom to work from home, the opportunity to vary start and finish times, or even the unspoken luxury of study leave. What I hear about is the sheer hard work of doing everything on a shoestring and taking on the double shift of parenting and full-time work, and how, when something has to give, well, it will not be the children or the whānau who are given up.

So it seems to us in the Māori Party that the offer of flexible hours is a win-win situation for everybody. I want to just mention the support of the National Party, which is conditional on flexibility happening without the mechanism of legislation to make it so. For the constituents in my electorate—for our people—the reality is that the power and control of working hours is simply not an equal, negotiable agreement. It does not cut both ways. Assisting parents to balance work and family life has not been achievable, and it will not be achievable, by the wistful hope of good-faith bargaining. We support this bill, therefore, because it is most clearly a worker-friendly initiative that can give more weight to the intentions of the Employment Relations Act. One cannot simply assume that employers will be automatically fair-minded and family friendly. Although we would hope that employers could recognise benefits such as increased productivity, improved morale, decreased absenteeism, enhanced staff retention, and improved profitability, the bulk of the lobbying that came into our offices does not give us much hope.

Finally, I will share the results of a recent Australian study called An Unexpected Tragedy. That report concluded that long working hours led to strained family relationships—a high social cost that impacts heavily on parents and that results in reduced child well-being. Will this Parliament be the one to stand in the way of a brighter future for our children? Kia ora.

JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future) : I stand on behalf of United Future to speak to the Employment Relations (Flexible Working Hours) Amendment Bill. United Future did not support the first reading of this bill. We had some serious concerns about the impact that this legislation would have on employers, and we were particularly mindful of the large number of small businesses that characterise the New Zealand employment environment. However, the substantial work done by both the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, and the willingness of the sponsor to delay the passage of this bill to allow Department of Labour officials to do some additional work, has in our opinion paid off.

This bill establishes a fair process that allows employees with family responsibilities to discuss flexible arrangements with their employers without fear of consequence. The number of reasons that an employer can use to decline a request are comprehensive. As an employer who has always negotiated flexible arrangements with employees, I have found that the benefits far outweigh any compromise I have to make. However, we do acknowledge that not every business has a work schedule that makes possible this flexibility, and the new and additional provisions give plenty of room for employers who cannot make this marker.

The British experience is very compelling, and the fact that the criteria that determines who can apply for flexible employment has been expanded seems to suggest the success that we can expect here in New Zealand. In the United Kingdom 90 percent of employers reported no significant problems complying, and 66 percent of managers considered the new provisions to be cost-effective.

If anyone has kept up with New Zealand research on the issues of workplace stress, they will know that the greatest stress factor that reduces worker productivity is family-based stress. The mum who has to prise a distraught toddler from her at a day-care centre is generally less focused than the worker who can take an extra 10 minutes to settle her child and make up the time in her lunchtime.

This bill is not about short-changing employers but about identifying where flexibility can be easily accommodated. United Future congratulates those employers who have already pioneered flexible family-friendly work environments. These employers understand that staff turnover is a costly exercise and that employment innovation is proving to be a winning approach to a sustainable workforce. Establishing a process that protects both employers and employees is more than useful; it is absolutely essential.

The Minister for Employment Relations and Consumer Affairs, Gerry Sutcliffe, in Britain says the UK legislation has been a tremendous success. He says that employers know that in a tight labour market it makes business sense to provide flexible working opportunities for their staff. Flexible working arrangements enable employers to raise their staff morale and decrease unplanned absenteeism, retain skilled staff, and reduce recruitment costs.

United Future is very pleased to support the second reading of this bill. We congratulate its sponsor Sue Kedgley on the fine work that has gone on since the first reading debate, and we remind the House that no one on their deathbed has ever regretted not spending more time at work.

PAULA BENNETT (National) : It is something to be speaking tonight about flexible working conditions! I suppose the first thing I would acknowledge about the Green Party, and about Sue Kedgley who has put this bill forward, is that it has raised the debate to a different level in our society. In the last 14 months we have certainly heard employers in particular talking a bit more about flexible working hours, what it means for them, and how they can deliver it to their employees. There are obviously things that we think are fundamentally wrong with the bill, but I would like to start by discussing flexible working hours and what the National Party believes they mean for employees out there, and for employers as well.

We believe that a change toward flexible working hours is already happening. We have seen that in the research data coming out—that up to 83 percent of employers are actually giving flexible working hours to their employees at the current time. I have personal experience, having worked in the recruitment field before coming into Parliament. I was in a situation of negotiating contracts and conditions for people going into employment, and I would certainly agree that the issue that constantly came up was not the issue of getting more money. More often than not, particularly for women, the issue was of the hours they were going to work. If people had young children, they were looking for something that gave them the opportunity to spend time with them. That was vitally important to those people. Equally, people without children were looking for a block of time off—half a day every fortnight—which would mean more to them for whatever reason they wanted to spend that time on. I never saw the reason as being what was important, but I saw the work-life balance as being what was vital.

So in all fairness there was constant negotiation. Employers who were smart enough to know they were living in a tight labour market knew that if they wanted to have good people on board, or if they had good people already working for them and wanted to keep them, the best thing to do was to recognise what their employees’ concerns and issues were, and to adjust the workplace to the best of their ability to accommodate them. We see that on a day-to-day basis, and we heard stories about it at the select committee from the submitters who came forward. What I found amusing in the submission process was that we often heard people say: “Well, I’m OK, but I’m worried about other people.”, and that is where it came from. We heard a lot of people talk about how they had been able to negotiate flexible working hours for themselves.

I want to keep on this issue a little bit, because I do not think we are all really grasping how absolutely important it is and just what the effects are. A lot of lip-service is going on, certainly from Labour, but it is about time we saw some serious action. What we hear time and time again is that the Government wants to see more women get into productive work. We certainly heard it from the Prime Minister; it is what she wants. We remember that from the Speech from the Throne. So that means, by definition, that women who choose to raise their families are not seen as being in productive work. We would like to see more research about the long-term effects on women who are going into paid work and the time that that takes them away from their families. We need to start asking some of the questions we have about what the long-term effects will be on those families, and what that means for them. So when we have such a push towards that—when we see children going into childcare and early childhood education at a younger age, and when we see women in situations where they feel they have no choice but to go into paid work and so make that choice—we wonder about the point of this legislation, which we feel is legislation for the sake of it and not legislation that will solve some of those problems. We can deal with the rhetoric, but until we deal with the facts I think there should be some huge concern going on there.

Awareness is good, and it has stimulated debate. I suppose if this were a different debate I would be asking the Minister of Labour to give us an account of the work-life balance project that she has initiated and has been running. It would certainly be of interest to us in the National Party, because we obviously have equal concerns about the flexibility of hours and people’s ability to get that work-life balance. The Minster has certainly recognised that and put a project in place. She has been going around to try to educate employers, but we are not seeing what sort of results have come from that. So one presumes that that project must have failed if we now need to legislate; it is as simple as that. Perhaps we should have stuck with a programme of educating employers, and talking to employees more often about their rights. Time and time again we have heard from employers that they would allow more flexibility if they knew what each individual really wanted, but that they are not hearing that. I certainly agree with a previous speaker from the Māori Party who spoke about that inequality, and about people feeling they cannot stand up and actually ask for it. Legislating will not fix that, quite frankly, but educating would have.

I find it quite amusing to hear members on the other side of the House bleating on. Those members should talk a bit more about the role of the unions in relation to the most vulnerable workers, because we wonder how well they are educating those vulnerable workers they say they speak for, time and time again. The unions need to let workers know that any one of them, at any time, can step up and ask for flexible working hours. Anyone can ask for flexible working hours at any time, and that is a really important fact for this House to take note of. It is quite easy for a member to stand up on that side of the House and paint us as the ogres who do not care about workers and who do not understand the pressures people live with on a day-to-day basis. The reality is that we are dealing with legislation that will be more arbitrary, create more bureaucracy, and make it more difficult for those people to stand up and ask.

So do we need an education programme for employees in order for them to understand what their rights are, and to give them an understanding of how they can step up and approach people and know what they can do? Without a doubt, they should stand up. The work-life balance project was not an absolutely bad idea. It was a reasonably good one, but we are not seeing it through to its full conclusion. Instead, it is being interrupted halfway through with legislation that will make this process a lot more arduous, and there will be many times when it will not get the results for those people that the Government really wants.

One of the concerns we have—and it is quite a tough one—is that someone can apply for flexible hours only once every 12 months. So there is a 12-month clause in the bill, and although members may say that people can do it in other ways, if we go by this legislation—and one presumes that people will abide by the rules and regulations—we see that they can apply only once every 12 months. Get in the real world! Things change—that is the reality of it. So people who have arrangements with their partners to work certain hours one week and to share childcare issues together, will all of a sudden find themselves in a situation where they cannot ask again in that 12-month period, because every one else has.

What happens at present? Actually, we find that employees negotiate amongst themselves, and that is happening more and more. We heard that from people who came forward to the select committee with submissions. Those people said that time and time again employees were working out their own negotiations, then taking them forward to the employer in terms of how they would job-swap, who would fill which shifts, and what hours they would work. It has been proven time and time again that this is the kind of thing that really works. So if we accept that flexible working hours are already happening, and if we accept that people have the right to ask for them and can ask for them, on any given day at any given time, then this bill is really just another form of a grievance process that will be used by some employees who are aggrieved by their employers and want to take them through the process.

I will talk through this process quickly, in the last minute that I have. Aggrieved employees can firstly go to a labour inspector, so that is another level of bureaucracy that has been put in since the bill was first introduced 14 months ago. If the labour inspector does not go for that, the employee then can go to mediation at the Employment Relations Authority. Appeals by the losing party will then be heard successively by the Employment Court and the Court of Appeal, and, ultimately, there is the possibility of going to the Supreme Court. Obviously, there was a concern that this process might happen, because a clause was put in to say that the most anyone can go for in compensation is an amount equal to the employee’s pay for 8 weeks, if it is found that through this process the employee should have been given those flexible hours. However, according to this bill the judicial system is not permitted to overturn an employer’s decision, which seems absolutely ludicrous in itself. Thank you.

Hon MARK GOSCHE (Labour—Maungakiekie) : I really relish the opportunity to speak in this debate on a very important bill, which is actually very light in its requirements of employers. I will talk about the process first; I think it was a very good one. The Transport and Industrial Relations Committee took a 1 year gap with the Employment Relations (Flexible Working Hours) Amendment Bill, so that employers could live up to the claims they made to the select committee that they would prove that the issue could be dealt with by education rather than by legislation. That year was wasted, in my view, by employers, who did not pick up the challenge. So the select committee then worked on improving the bill, and we have done a very good job. I think it is very fair legislation, and, as I said, very light legislation in terms of its requirements of employers.

I would like those who oppose the bill to consider these few facts. In the 2006 census, 420,000 New Zealanders reported providing support for an individual with ill health or a disability within the previous 4 weeks. This information comes from the very good document that Ruth Dyson has put out, Caring for New Zealand Carers. This document also reports the fact that women are more likely to be carers than men. Around 63 percent of carers in New Zealand are women. Thirty-eight percent of carers in New Zealand are between the ages of 45 and 64, with a further 31 percent between the ages of 30 and 44. Māori and Pacific peoples are more likely to provide unpaid support. Why is that important? Well, it tells us that a huge number of people, just in terms of the community, care for relatives, friends, or whomever, in their homes or in other people’s homes. Many of those people also have to try to balance that caregiving with work.

I will talk a little bit about my own personal experience, which I am not wont to do in this House on members’ day, but this is an appropriate debate in which to do it. Maybe my doing so will get home to the people who oppose this bill the sort of life that many New Zealanders lead, and I am one of them. Tomorrow evening, if I do not get home by 9.30—if the aeroplane from Wellington to Auckland is late—my 75-year-old mother-in-law will be required to wait at my home, because the paid caregiver will have gone. When I come to Wellington I have to worry about that problem every Thursday night. Every Friday night, from 9 o’clock until 8.30 the next morning, I am the caregiver for my wife. My wife cannot do anything for herself. She is completely dependent on everybody else for everything: being dressed, being fed, being moved. She cannot get out of bed; she is hoisted out of bed. We cannot leave her at home. I cannot go out on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday night without finding somebody in the wider family to sit with her. That is a familiar story to many, many people in New Zealand.

I am lucky. I am in a job where I can juggle my hours—just—to fit in with those demands. We get paid caregiver time, but we have to cover over 50 hours ourselves—that is, me and my 75-year-old mother-in-law. My children are all working. They are in their 20s, and one of them has a child. Both parents of that child have to be off to work at 7 o’clock in the morning; school does not start until 9 o’clock. One of my other daughters has to take that little boy to school, and at the end of the day one of my nieces looks after him after school. That, again, is a common story in New Zealand families. It is not unique to me. It is the reality for hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders.

People who say it should be left to the voluntarist system need to think again. I do as close as I can to a full-time MP’s hours—and we all know that down here we work more than 40 hours on just the 3 days of Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday—and I do at least 40 hours of unpaid caregiver time at home, because the State is unable to provide full-time caregiver hours. That is a reality we have to face up to. I do not hear anybody saying we should increase taxes in order to relieve those people. No, I hear people who are opposed to this bill saying we should cut taxes because we are spending too much on health.

In the last census, 420,000 people reported that they were responsible for providing caregiver time in their families or in their communities. What is the multiplier effect of that? There is the person whom they are caring for; that doubles the figure. Then there are all the other family members. So the vast majority of New Zealanders, at some time in their lives, have those types of pressures placed upon them, as well as trying to get on with their careers or their jobs, and trying to put food on the table and pay the mortgage or pay the rent. So I find it absolutely incredible that anybody could oppose this very light legislation.

We should think about the demand in New Zealand for a workforce. We have record levels of employment and record low levels of unemployment, but we still have a labour market crying out for more people. Why would people oppose this measure? It is one of the ways of solving that problem, of saying to people like me: “We can work around the constraints that you have in your life. We recognise that you have caregiver responsibilities for your child, your disabled relative, or your elderly mum and dad.” In fact, the bill should go further, and I hope we are able to amend it further so that even more people are captured by it. I lay down that challenge to members of the employer community. They should think about it. They always turn up at select committee hearings and say people are our most valuable resource, so why would they oppose this legislation?

Why would the National Party say it could all be done by voluntarism? I heard about the voluntary approach that the hospitality sector said it took. It said there were lots of restaurants in each street, and if one did not offer employees the hours they wanted, they should leave that restaurant and go to the next one. I am afraid that that is just not good enough. That is not the sort of flexibility that goes both ways; that is the sort of flexibility that goes only one way—the employer decides what the flexibility is, and employees either meet it or they do not.

The select committee heard from many, many people. I remember the women from the women’s division of the Law Society—we did not hear from the men. They talked about the difficulties of trying to make their way in a career where the glass ceiling has been there for a very long time. Women from the Federation of Business and Professional Women talked about the difficulties of women with children being told by employers that a breakfast meeting was being held in the morning, and although it was not compulsory, they would really like all the team to turn up. Well, how can women do that when the childcare centre does not open in time for them to be able to attend? All of us know the pressure to attend after-work drinks. It is all about bonding and team work, and being part of the team, and that is how one gets ahead in life. Of course, the childcare centre is not going to look after the kid after 5.30 p.m. How can anybody in the National Party ignore that and sit there with a straight face? How can the employer community ignore that and say it is taking care of it voluntarily, when we heard evidence from people from all walks of life who said that was not the case?

This bill is very personal to me. It is not legislation that anybody should be frightened of. It will start to take care of the problems experienced by many of the people I come across because my wife has a disability, and many of them are not as lucky as I am. They have had to give up their jobs and their careers, to sell their houses, and to become full-time carers. They have had to live with all the stresses and strains, the sickness, and all the things that, as Tariana Turia said, come with being a carer, and they have had to put aside their aspirations in life. This bill could make a small step towards making New Zealand a better place, and that is why I support it so strongly.

Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) : It is ironic, is it not, that in one evening we are debating two bills promoted by the Green Party? I know perfectly well that both bills are well intentioned. The Green Party wants to do these things for the good of people. It wants to extend the power of the law to make things easier for people. The bills are—typically, but not exclusively—for young people and for women in the workforce who would prefer to have more flexible working hours. I do not question the Green Party’s good intentions. That is not the point of the National Party criticism. Our concern, fundamentally, is that this situation is like the drip, drip, drip of compliance costs on the stone. No one drip makes us particularly wet, and no one drip makes things awkward or wears away the stone, but if we just add these legislative components bit by bit, piece by piece—

Dr Jackie Blue: Drip by drip.

Dr WAYNE MAPP:—drip by drip, then pretty soon there will be a whole flood of legislation to deal with, a whole impenetrable wall of legislation that just cripples and hurts this country.

The truth is that this country is over-governed. I know that that remark may seem a little trite, and I know that the left will say that such a remark is the usual answer from the right and that it is always going to come up with that kind of hoary old chestnut, but the facts actually confirm the view that we put forward.

I can point—as I did earlier in the day—not just to growth but to productivity. The Government crows about growth in this economy. We hear its members day by day saying that the farmers are doing exceptionally well, and so forth, and that we are not doing so bad with growth at 2 percent. Who can actually be proud of 2 percent growth in an economy? Why would Government members get up day by day and trumpet 2 percent growth as if it were some marvellous achievement? It is extraordinary that the best we can do in terms of growth is 2 percent, even though we have virtually full employment—and I acknowledge that we have virtually full employment. When we have full employment, we must be able to do better than 2 percent growth.

Surely that situation causes the Government and its allies, the Green Party, to ask some questions. Why is it, when we have virtually full employment, when we have virtually the most buoyant commodity prices for a generation—arguably, actually, for two generations—that the best we can do is 2 percent? Why can Government members not answer such a simple question? I will make a suggestion to the left—and I use that term broadly; it includes Labour and the Greens, because I have heard the two parties talk about the prospect of a Labour-Green coalition in the future. Actually, that is a pretty horrific thought, is it not? If that is the sort of spectre we face, I would have to say that instead of something like 600 people leaving New Zealand per week we will probably see 1,000 or 1,500 people leaving per week.

To come back to my point, I have to ask whether those Government members have ever considered the totality of the compliance costs they impose on the economy, because wealthier economies, more successful economies—places that are actually proving more attractive to New Zealanders—do not have this kind of legislation. Australia, our closest competitor, does not have this legislation. Australia does not have the legislation that was passed earlier today. That is our competition. You know, that is so blindingly obvious, I would have thought. It is all very well for Ms Kedgley to refer to Scandinavia and Europe, but we are not actually in competition with Scandinavia. Those countries are not our major international threat economically; Australia is. Australia may be our pals in so many other ways, but in this area we have to—we absolutely have to—ensure that our economy is competitive compared with that of Australia. Unless we do so, it is absolutely inevitable that more people will leave our country and go to Australia, because they can. It is not a difficult choice. So many New Zealanders are making that precise choice, and for the Green Party to protest about it indicates that its members are putting their heads in the sand, in that respect.

What is worse in respect of this legislation is that the Green Party came along with legislation that picked up the worst features of the European legislation. I would have to say that Europe is not a model that this country should want to follow, because Europe is actually in decline. When we look at the global competitive stakes, we see that the countries that are doing well economically—be they democratic administrations or republican administrations—are the United States, Canada, and Australia. Those are the countries we relate to. Australia, in particular, is the country that we have to benchmark ourselves against. So far, this Government and the Green Party have totally failed in that benchmarking test.

The income gap between our country, New Zealand, and Australia has grown substantially—in fact, by about 30 percent—in the last 6 years in after - income tax terms. Surely, that should give pause for thought for members on the other side of the House. Surely, it should make Government and Green members think that maybe they need to give this legislation a miss, that maybe we do not really need it, and that maybe the voluntary system works sufficiently well. OK, it will not work perfectly. Nothing will ever work perfectly, but maybe it works well enough, because there are bigger issues at stake. One of those bigger issues at stake is our overall competitiveness with Australia.

I say to the Government that it has had 8 years in office, and in that 8 years it has failed that competitive test. That is the simple truth of it, is it not? The Government has fundamentally failed that test. I remember back in 1999 and 2000 when the Prime Minister would proudly strut into the House and proclaim to the nation that she expected our country to get into the top half of the OECD. She genuinely believed it. I repeat: she genuinely believed it. She does not say that anymore, because she knows it is not deliverable. The one thing I would generally say about her is that, on one level at least, she tries to be true to herself. When she sees she is failing at something, she stops talking about it. She knows we will not be able to get into the top half of the OECD. She knows we will not be competitive with Australia. So she has stopped talking about it.

Well, New Zealanders have not forgotten. They know they have a choice: they can simply cross the Tasman and get another job. I predict that some members opposite who will be retiring will do precisely that. Some of them, I know for a fact—but I will not name them in here, because that would be inappropriate—will be going to Australia to live. They have made their choice that the grass is greener on the other side of the hill. What does that say about Helen, when some in her own team say: “Actually, Helen, you’ve failed.”? They say she has failed in the most basic test in terms of which country people would prefer to live in—Australia or New Zealand. Those people are making the choice to go to Australia.

I have to say to this Government that it should put some real thought into this sort of legislation. It should not go in for this policy of drip, drip, drip against the stone, building up that dam, because ultimately, I have to say, that policy will wash Labour away in 2008.

SUE BRADFORD (Green) : That was an extraordinary contribution from Dr Wayne Mapp, especially given that the National Party is supposed to be all in favour of families, and that I understand it is out to cultivate the women’s vote next year. I do not know how many women actually appreciate the National Party’s position on flexible working hours.

This is the second Green Party member’s bill on employment relations issues before the House today, highlighting the importance that we place on issues of fairness and sustainability when it comes to conditions of employment for workers—unlike certain other parties in this House. The significant improvements in the industrial relations arena that have occurred over the last 7 or 8 years, would not have happened without the Green Party’s support, and today we have two significant gains for employees being progressed at our initiative. I would like to congratulate my colleague Sue Kedgley on the enormous amount of work she has done in successfully getting the bill thus far. Also I thank and acknowledge colleagues from other political parties, including particularly Labour, but also New Zealand First and United Future for their support—

Barbara Stewart: And the Māori Party.

SUE BRADFORD: —the Māori Party, and also trade unions and community organisations—

Barbara Stewart: And Gordon Copeland.

SUE BRADFORD: And Gordon Copeland.

Barbara Stewart: And Taito Phillip Field.

SUE BRADFORD: Oh, good; even more. So I thank also Gordon Copeland, Taito Phillip Field, and all the trade unions and community groups that have also organised and worked so hard to get the bill through as far as this. According to the Department of Labour report, Quality Flexible Work: The New Zealand Experience, published last year, flexibility of working hours is currently something that is largely enjoyed by management and senior staff. Perhaps the National Party does support that part of the hierarchy. But many other New Zealanders of another sort are forced to work longer and longer hours, often in more than one job at a time. Indeed, 40 percent of New Zealand employees are in paid work more than 45 hours a week, and for 21 percent it is more than 50 hours a week. Often—especially in the retail, servicing, and caring industries—it is low wages that necessitate employees working such long hours. The legacy of 9 years of falling real wages under the National Government’s Employment Contracts Act is in no small part responsible for what has happened. The majority of workers in low-paid work are women, who so often carry the bulk of family responsibilities.

I would really like to acknowledge the contributions made just before, tonight, by Tariana Turia and Mark Gosche, in terms of their own personal experiences of what happens in any job when one has to make that sacrifice to look after one’s children, or for other dependants in the family. This is a sacrifice that an extraordinary number of New Zealand workers make every day of the working year. Parents in low-paid work usually cannot afford to reduce their hours, and, as a result, suffer stress as they attempt to fit in their family responsibilities around their paid work. Often enough, it is incredibly difficult to cope with juggling work and family, especially when one does not have the means to pay for outside assistance; and that is often enough to the detriment of the children. This is of particular significance, given that the level of participation of women in the paid workforce is now higher than ever, and that in so many families both parents are working. The Department of Labour report I have already mentioned, also showed that at any time around 38 percent of workers have responsibility for at least one child, 5 percent for an elderly or sick relative, and 3 percent for a sick partner. All up, it seems that over 40 percent of our workforce has caregiving responsibilities for someone.

Sue Kedgley’s bill seeks to address these issues by putting in place a framework under which such workers will be able to retain certainty of hours of work, while still fulfilling their family commitments. The Transport and Industrial Relations Committee has recommended some sensible amendments to the bill, including that requests for flexibility be extended to the place of employment. This recognises that in today’s electronic age, many types of employment can be carried out, either wholly or in part, from the employee’s home. The second significant change was to extend the categories of people who can request flexible working hours, to those who are caring for a dependent relative, other than a child. This is another very welcome improvement. Similar legislation in the UK, which my colleague Sue Kedgley has studied in depth, has been an overwhelming success. In the UK, 80 percent of requests for flexible working hours are granted, and a further 10 percent reach a mutually agreed compromise position. That is an outstanding success rate for any non-mandatory legislative provision. There is no reason to believe that a similar success rate will not occur here, when this bill comes into law.

This is a bill that New Zealanders clearly want. In a survey in 2005 by the Equal Employment Opportunities Trust, 93 percent of respondents identified flexible working hours and, in particular, flexibility of start and finish times, and the ability to occasionally change their working hours, as the change they would most like to see in their workplace. Flexible working hours was the most important requirement identified by that survey, regardless of gender, age, or ethnicity. In the face of the overwhelming evidence that this is a bill that is needed and wanted by New Zealand workers and their families, and in many different sectors of the workforce, I am astounded by the position the National Party has taken on the bill. National Party members purport to claim that flexible working arrangements are, in principle, a good idea, but they go on to not support the bill. In the face of all the evidence, they claim that the existing legislative framework is somehow sufficient to achieve the objective of greater flexibility. They are right out on a limb here, given that their colleagues in the Conservative Party in the UK are right behind flexible working hours. The National Party does not seem to have any communication with them.

Claims made by the National Party tonight have no credibility. The Employment Relations Act, which, incidentally, the Chicken Littles of the National Party claimed back in 2000 would cause the sky to fall, has been in force for 7 years now, and no sky has fallen. The working conditions of many employees have actually improved significantly since the demise of the Employment Contracts Act. But one thing the Employment Relations Act has not achieved for a large number of New Zealand workers is flexible working arrangements.

The other claim by the National Party about this bill is even more bizarre: it argues that it will somehow be counter-productive, and that employers may be dissuaded, because of the added procedures they could be subject to under the Act, from employing people who fit the profile of someone who may request flexible working arrangements. In case National Party members have not noticed, it has been unlawful for many years for employers to do what National claims employers may do in response to this legislation. That is unlawful discrimination under the Human Rights Act, under the Employment Relations Act, and it was even unlawful under the National Party’s own Employment Contracts Act. What employers are going to subject themselves to the potential proceedings for unlawful discrimination, by refusing to employ someone who fits the profile of a person who may request flexible working arrangements? It would be a very reckless employer, indeed, and one who, I would suggest, should think seriously about whether he or she should even be an employer.

The National Party also claims that this bill will be counter-productive because the legislative framework provided by the bill says that employees can ask for flexible working arrangements only once a year. That blatantly misrepresents the effect of new section 69AAD in clause 6A of the bill. That section will prevent an employee from making a new formal request for flexible arrangements under Part 6AA within 12 months of making a previous request. It does not prevent an employer from agreeing, within that period, to a less formal request, however. This section is in the bill for one purpose, and one purpose alone: to protect employers from having to deal with repeated, trivial, or vexatious formal requests by employees. I would have thought that that was a purpose that the National Party would agree with.

I suspect that as employers become acquainted with the actual provisions of the bill, the need for formal requests under the Act will diminish and employers will become more accustomed to the concept of flexibility, and more willing to agree to requests made in less formal ways. Contrary to the National Party’s claims, this bill does not prevent any employee from asking for flexible arrangements, or any employer from agreeing to them at any time.

So what is National’s real reason for opposing this bill? I think it is simply that the National Party does not understand employment relations. Those members still do not understand why their Employment Contracts Act was such a dismal disaster for New Zealand workers. They opposed the Employment Relations Act, yet they defended it when the Employment Relations Law Reform Bill came around. Now they appear to be defending it again, in trying to claim that it provides adequately for flexibility of employment arrangements when the evidence shows clearly that it does not.

We have also seen the National Party oppose 4 weeks’ minimum annual leave, but now it supports it. We have seen it promote Wayne Mapp’s Draconian amendment bill that would have stripped workers of almost all employment rights for the first 90 days on a new job, and just today we have seen it oppose my bill that will put almost to an end the ability of employers to pay exploitative wage rates to workers aged 16 and 17. However, unlike the National Party, the Green Party does understand employment relations, and does understand the need for a legislative framework that will help introduce more flexible working arrangements to improve the quality of life of all those workers who work long hours, who are often poorly paid, and who need this in their lives for the good of not only themselves but also their dependants and other family members. For that reason, all of us in the Green Party are delighted to see this bill successfully reach this stage in the parliamentary process, and I look forward to that process’s completion very shortly.

DARIEN FENTON (Labour) : It is a great pleasure to see the Employment Relations (Flexible Working Hours) Amendment Bill return to the House for its second reading. I acknowledge many of the speakers and in particular my colleague Mark Gosche, who has reminded us that this is all about people and people’s lives. It is not about figures, charts, the OECD, and growth; it is about what is happening to real people. I want to read a quote from a woman: “I care for my husband, who has had multiple strokes, and also support my disabled mother, who lives in a nearby rest home. To keep sane I care for toddlers in the nursery of a day-care centre for 2 hours a day. That is my social and relaxation therapy.” What an amazing person she is. I think there are many people, as we have heard tonight, in that situation, to whom this bill will bring some relief.

This bill has had a very long gestation, having been introduced in 2005 and initially reported back, as some members have said, in mid-2006, with the recommendation that it be delayed for a year. I thank the member Sue Kedgley not only for bringing the issue to the House for debate but also for her patience and willingness to work with other parties to achieve a bill that the majority of parties in this House now support.

This bill is a very modest legislative step in confirming what we all like to say we support, which is that New Zealanders should have more balance between their working and family lives. As other speakers have mentioned, there is now a significant body of evidence to suggest that people who work long and unsocial hours are more likely to experience negative health outcomes, strained family relationships, and, in some cases, parenting and child difficulties. This Government is well aware of this and has had policies on work-life balance for a long time. With the help of other like-minded parties, it has introduced positive changes to help balance work and family life, such as paid parental leave, 4 weeks’ annual leave, Working for Families, 20 hours’ free early childhood education, cheaper doctors’ visits, and much, much more. Obviously, Labour is supporting this bill because we believe there is more work to be done.

I note with some amusement that the reinvented National Party said last week that it is supporting longer paid parental leave, claiming it only ever opposed it because it did not apply to the self-employed. Well, that is just rubbish—utter rubbish! The National Party vehemently opposed paid parental leave from the time it was introduced in 2001, and at every stage of the legislation in 2004, National members voted against extending the period of paid leave from 12 weeks to 14 weeks. In the recent debate about extending paid parental leave to the self-employed, National member Jo Goodhew said that paid parental leave was like a benefit and that, as such, the National Party was philosophically opposed to it because, really, those people would much rather have had a tax cut.

So what is it with the National Party? I would like to know, really. Are those members now telling us they were wrong, or is it just that Labour is so far ahead with its ideas and policy that National has decided it had better catch up?

Turning to the bill, I say that New Zealand’s long working hours culture is a problem we need to tackle. Other speakers, again, have mentioned the aggregate number of hours that are worked in New Zealand. Per head of population, they are the sixth highest in the OECD. Today’s New Zealanders are expected to work long hours, including week-nights and weekends, and put the firm before their families. Many workers work at more than one job to make ends meet. So despite all the talk about work-life balance and making some progress at the big end of town, not a lot has been happening for workers lower down the economic chain. That is having a real impact on our families. If mum and dad are both working shifts, then what is happening to the kids?

In my view, one of the core problems we face is the lack of working-time regulations in New Zealand. The 8-hour day, 40-hour week introduced by the first Labour Government as standard conditions for most workers has fallen foul of the relentless drive for economic competitiveness. We heard some of that silly stuff from the member Wayne Mapp earlier on. Although there are many benefits to having flexible working, it is a double-edged sword, and in New Zealand the flexibility has been going all one way. Employers have extended working, opening, and operating hours and extended shifts, and today they use more and more flexible work tools such as part-time work, casualisation, and temporary and contracted work.

So although I completely support this bill as part of a drive towards achieving a better work-life balance in New Zealand, I remain concerned that “flexible” in many employers’ minds simply means more part-time work, contracting, and casualisation. Therefore, today in this debate I am calling for a discussion on whether working hours or working times should be regulated in this country, with minimum and maximum hours of work.

One of the reasons that the flexible working hours legislation in the UK has worked well is that they have working-time regulations. So do many other countries. Indeed, Australia has a standard 38-hour week before overtime is paid, along with the ability to work flexitime—regardless of what the member Wayne Mapp said. The United States has a 40-hour work week for wage earners, and almost all European countries have a standard 40-hour week. Of course, there is France with its 35-hour week, and we all know the corresponding increase in productivity that has come from the 35-hour week. In our country we have few of these protections, except where unions have managed to negotiate for limits to working hours and the acceptance of recognised breaks.

Interestingly, those issues are often at the top of the agenda when it comes to negotiations. The international pattern is that countries with relatively limited or no regulation of working time tend to have a much higher incidence of excessive hours than other countries. Our problem—that 40 percent of New Zealand workers are working more than 45 hours a week and 21 percent are working more than 50 hours a week—is a big one, and it is no wonder that parents are under stress and families are suffering. Flexible working can deliver enormous benefits if it is done with everyone’s needs in mind, and that is why we need this legislation.

Although some have undoubtedly benefited from having flexible work practices, more have not. The workplace reforms that we saw in the 1990s during National’s “decade of shame” were driven by the imperative of business profitability, without there being any regard for the cost to families and communities. From what we have heard tonight, that is what National would like to see continue. The social effects are obvious.

This bill is very light-handed regulation; it just gives workers the right to ask for flexible hours. What is the big deal? But it gives employers many legitimate reasons to say no. Its real value will be to further the acceptability of flexible working, and to see benefits for both businesses and workers. It is very disappointing to hear of the opposition to this bill from Business New Zealand. I have to say that when it comes to work-life balance, that organisation talks the talk, but when it comes down to making the talk a reality for more people, it moves into its default position of opposing regulation.

Research shows that similar legislation in the UK, Germany, and the Netherlands has not resulted in the opening of floodgates, with massive disputes around the right to request. Few requests have ended up in court. Fewer than 1 percent of all UK employers rejecting a request have had a claim made against them. Even the business organisation in England, the Confederation of British Industry, says it believes that the new right to request flexible working hours has made huge strides in promoting different ways of working.

Although I am not surprised about the National Party’s opposition to this bill, I will make a little prediction. In a year or so John Key, Kate Wilkinson, and others in the National Party will flip-flop and jump on to the bandwagon to support the right to request flexible work. They will figure out that it is actually a very, very popular thing—just like paid parental leave—and that it is a necessary thing. Just mark my words, that is what will happen.

There are many, many other amendments, and this is not the time to outline those, but I do look forward to debating them in the Committee stage of the bill. Once again I congratulate the member, and I also congratulate the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, which worked so hard on this bill.