Hon PAUL SWAIN (Minister of Labour) : I move, That the Holidays Amendment Bill be now read a third time. There was a lot of debate about this bill during the Committee stage, and I want to make a couple of brief comments at the start before going into some of the substance of the bill.

The Holidays Amendment Bill amends the Holidays Act 2003. As I indicated earlier in the year, the bill is about making sure that the unintended consequences of the Holidays Act, which was introduced in 2003, are dealt with. It is important to say right from the start that the bill does not undermine the fundamental policy and principles of the Holidays Act. It is really important to outline what those are. There are two basic principles, by and large. The first one is a commitment from the Government side of the House, and from a number of other parties in the House, to 4 weeks’ annual leave coming into force in April 2007. That is a very, very important step forward for ordinary working people in New Zealand. The fact is that Australia has had 4 weeks’ annual leave for the last 30 years. But if people listened to the National Party, they would think that it was the greatest insult ever foisted upon the New Zealand economy.

Darren Hughes: I thought they wanted living standards raised.

Hon PAUL SWAIN: Of course, the National Party does want living standards raised, and the Leader of the Opposition constantly talks about the fact that we are competing with workers from around the world. He compares us with Australia, yet when we get a chance to do something that brings us in line with Australia, in order to try to make sure that we are competitive with Australia, he turns it down. That is strange. There is a word to describe it that starts with “h” that we are not allowed to use.

The second point, and the most important point, is that the Leader of the Opposition has said that he will repeal the 4 weeks’ annual leave provision.

Darren Hughes: No!

Hon PAUL SWAIN: Yes, he did say that. That will be difficult for him, because he worked as the Governor of the Reserve Bank, and if one goes to the Reserve Bank website, one sees that 4 weeks’ annual leave is mandated as part of the conditions of those working at the Reserve Bank.

Brent Catchpole: How many?

Hon PAUL SWAIN: Four weeks. The Leader of the Opposition was quite happy to accept at least 4 weeks’ annual leave when he was the Governor of the Reserve Bank, but when it comes to every other working person in the country, no, it is not good enough, and the National Party will shut the door on it because it will lead to a downfall in the New Zealand economy. There is a word for that; we are not allowed to use it here, but it starts with “h”. I will not be drawn into using it.

I want someone from the National Party, in the debate over the next little while, to stand up and reconfirm that party’s commitment to repealing the 4 weeks’ annual leave provision in the Holidays Act. I just want somebody to say—yes or no—whether the National Party would repeal it. We have been asking for that. National members said it in 2002 and they said it in 2003, and I am very keen to hear what those members have to say now.

The second thing that the bill does is introduce time and a half for ordinary working people who work on a public holiday, and there is nothing wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with people getting a little extra for that. In fact, most New Zealanders think it is fair. They think it is fair that if someone who could have been home with the family on a public holiday—which is what public holidays are supposed to be about—is called to work to pump gas, serve a meal, or carry bags up to a hotel suite, then that person should get a little extra than those people sitting at home and enjoying the public holiday with their families. I think most people would consider that to be fair.

What the Act was attempting to do was to address a lot of the basic rights that were taken away when the Employment Contracts Act was introduced in the year 1991. We were trying to bring a little bit back for working people in New Zealand, and there is nothing wrong with that. In fact, the vast majority of people think it is fair—but not those people on the Opposition benches.

Darren Hughes: Ask them how many holidays they take.

Hon PAUL SWAIN: How many holidays do members of the Opposition take? Well, most people would say that life is one big holiday for them, given the effort that they put into this place. But the reality is that one of the things we will say to ordinary working people in New Zealand is that Don Brash and the National Party want to take a holiday—yours. I do not mean Mr Speaker’s; I mean everybody else’s. As a result of that, we will have quite an interesting little bit of campaign fun as we lead in to the next election. With regard to the provision of time and a half and 4 weeks’ annual leave, I will be interested to see all those members stand up and say: “We get 4 weeks’ annual leave, but we’re not going to give it everybody else.” I am really looking forward to the speeches that I will hear from the National Party in a minute.

This bill is about addressing unintended consequences. When I started to see that there were a few issues, I set up a working party made up primarily of the Council of Trade Unions and Business New Zealand, but including a number of other industries, as well. I say to the Council of Trade Unions and Business New Zealand that this was a very, very good effort on their part, and I appreciate the fact that they worked constructively. I think it is fair to say that Business New Zealand had a grave number of concerns about the legislation full stop, yet it was prepared to engage constructively. It is fair to say that the Council of Trade Unions was most concerned about a number of the provisions in the bill that came forward, particularly those around medical certificates, but it worked constructively, as well. I think that that was really, really important. I want to thank them for the effort and energy that they put into this matter.

It is true to say that not everybody who was involved in the working party is 100 percent happy, but I support what my colleagues from United Future have said, because it is the honourable position. The position those members have taken is that this bill is an improvement and a step forward. What we hear from other parties is that they want to go back to the drawing board. My concern was to ensure that we fixed this matter prior to Labour weekend, and I want to thank United Future for supporting that.

The bill does a number of things. First of all, it tries to make sure that people who already get time and a half as part of an agreement, or whatever, do not get time and a half on top of that. No one thought that was fair. It was an unintended consequence. Some people said that it was clear in the legislation, and other people said that it was not. So we are making it absolutely, specifically clear that if one receives time and a half as part of an agreement, one does not get time and a half on top of that for working on a public holiday, and that is fair.

The second issue that came to my attention was that if someone was sick on a public holiday and took the day off, that person would receive time and a half as if he or she had worked on the public holiday. Personally, I do not think that that was intended, either—that people who are sick on a public holiday would get the same rate of pay as someone who works on a public holiday. [Interruption] The member might say that, but in my view that was not the intention, and people would not have agreed to it. The reality is that if one is sick on a public holiday, one receives the normal rate of pay, and, as a result, one does not get a day in lieu. But it is certainly treated as a sick day, as it rightly should be.

The third issue is the fact that lots of people with composite agreements did not know whether holiday pay was included in them, or time and a half for penal pay, so we gave them a year to sort that out. People then said a year was not long enough, because a lot of the contracts go for 3 years, so we have said that we will extend it out to 2007 to give them more time to sort out that provision. The Transport and Industrial Relations Committee—rightly—extended that to individual contracts, as well, to be consistent. I think that is a very good point, as well.

Then there was the issue around medical certificates, which caused some controversy. My view was that within the first 3 days the employer, given reasonable grounds, should be able to ask for a medical certificate. The employer is to pay for the medical certificate, and that gives balance on either side.

So I say that this is good legislation. I thank United Future for its support. I think it is the honourable position to take. I think that a number of other people were keen to support the bill, but were not quite so sure, and decided to vote against it. I think it is good legislation, and I commend it to the House.

Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) : This bill is a miserable and pathetic effort. That is why the employer organisations—Business New Zealand, the Employers and Manufacturers Association (Northern)—and right across the entire country are saying no to this legislation. When we have five problems, one of which is huge and the others are trivial, people expect us to deal with the real problem, and not to just focus on the trivial. Through the submissions process, from submitter after submitter, it was absolutely clear that there was one issue that was expected to be fixed up. There was one major problem with the Holidays Act, and the Government has completely ignored it.

These are the facts. For the 3 months since April 2004, the meat industry has seen its sick leave increase by 50 percent. Air New Zealand showed in its annual report that the Holidays Act has caused an increase in costs of $17.5 million. It said that the Act does nothing for productivity and growth. [Interruption] That member should read the annual report for 2004, and he if did that, he would learn something. But, of course, he does not. Government members are oblivious to the facts and to the owners of business, and beholden only to their union mates. The reasons are simple.

It is now possible to get more money from being sick than from working. It is not the same amount of money for being sick as for a person working, but more money, and that is the concern. That has caused the explosion in the taking of sick leave, and businesses want it fixed up. Did they get a thoughtful hearing from the Government? No, they did not. In fact, they were completely and totally ignored. Now, there was an opportunity in the Committee stage to restore the position back to where it was when the Government itself—the Labour Government—just a little more than 12 months ago in 2003, introduced the Holidays Bill into the House. It could have just restored it back to that. Predictably, of course, Labour voted against that move. United Future had its opportunity, but it abstained, and the employers have taken note.

What is that party’s excuse for abstaining? What is its excuse for voting for this bill in the House today? We heard the member for United Future Mr Paul Adams talking about a meal of elephants. He said that this bill represented one bite from the elephant. I guess that an elephant contains thousands of bites. Is United Future really expecting the Government to make thousands of amendments to the Holidays Act so that, bite by bite, it can vote for them and finally fix them up? I guess that shows the naivety of the United Future party and the way that it is completely beholden and in thrall to the Government, because it is enabling Labour to avoid the issue—that is what it is doing. It is conniving with the Government to stop the real problems being fixed.

The real issue is “relevant daily pay”—that is the serious problem. I will talk about that issue in a bit of detail. Relevant daily pay includes ordinary pay, overtime, productivity bonuses, and incentives. It was inserted into the bill without consultation. It came as a surprise because it was not a concept that was in Labour’s own bill in 2003. That is why it is now possible for workers to be sick and get more money than when they are working. We heard the very simple facts from the Meat Industry Association.

Imagine this—[Interruption]—if Labour’s junior whip, Darren Hughes, could do so. A chain in a meat plant relies on a number of people to work it and make it efficient. That is how people get the productivity bonuses and incentives—by putting the throughput in. If some of those people call in sick, the chain cannot work effectively but the people who are sick get the effect of the productivity bonuses. The people who are working do not. So we have the absurd proposition that people who are sick get more money than people who are working. I know that the Speaker in the Chair is well familiar with the meat industry. He must, surely, be aware that it is an absolute absurdity and a nonsense that someone will get paid more money for being sick than their fellow employees, who are doing precisely the same job, and who are actually at work. That is nonsense.

This Government and United Future had the opportunity to fix that very problem. They were completely deaf to that. Why were they deaf? That is an important question.

We know that the Government members on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee are completely beholden to unions. Every last one of them is an ex - trade unionist. We are not just talking about ordinary members of trade unions—people who might be working in the public service and who happen to pay union dues. These are the people who are the activists in the trade unions.

Take the chairman of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. He was secretary of the Service and Food Workers Union. Lianne Dalziel is a well-known union lawyer—that was her entire legal experience. Lynne Pillay was another well-known union organiser from out west. [Interruption] The member who is now interjecting, Helen Duncan, was the president of the New Zealand Educational Institute.

All these people are completely deaf to the pleas of business. They do not understand business. They hate business. Business, to them, is to be raped and pillaged for the benefit of union members, and they seek each and every opportunity to do so. The Holidays Act is a classic example of that. So when the submissions were made to the select committee, those members were completely deaf to the pleas of business. Not a single amendment addressed those concerns. Those members voted against the Supplementary Order Paper when it was put to them but, of course, they were all ears for the union. They sympathised and empathised with every sad tale that was brought up because they wanted to help the unions. They asked how high they had to jump when the unions said to jump. I guess that the answer is: as high as requested.

We are very clear on this issue. The Act needs reform. The single biggest issue that needs reform is relevant daily pay. The bill that was introduced into Parliament in 2003 by the Government had the solution with the concept of ordinary pay. It even included certain payments that were standard parts of the contract. It was an advance on the 1981 Act. As a reasonable proposition, last week we asked the House to return to the bill that was introduced by the Labour Government in 2003 as a reasonable adjustment and the way to deal with the concerns raised by businesses right across the country. Labour refused that opportunity.

Today we hear the Government saying that it is doing a wonderful thing by passing this bill. It says that it is passing it before Labour Day. Not a single employer will be able to implement it, because the Act is so complex and so difficult to understand in the short number of days between now and Labour Day that it will be impossible to adjust computer programmes, salary programmes, and so on to take any account of this bill.

I will close on this next point. Mr Simon Carlaw was asked a very clear question: would he prefer the real issue of relevant daily pay fixed, or this bill? He said he wanted the real issue fixed because that is how business, productivity, and wealth are advanced in this country.

Hon MARK GOSCHE (Labour—Maungakiekie) : It is somewhat of a pleasure to speak after that member has sat down and to remind him about productivity and efficiency, because I understand that the National Party policy is to get rid of 4 weeks’ annual leave. Did that member move a Supplementary Order Paper into this House to test that? Did Dr Wayne Mapp, National’s latest industrial relations spokesperson, get up to impress his leader, who has promised, if National is elected next year, to get rid of 4 weeks’ annual leave? Did he? No, he did not. He was probably asleep at the time and forgot. The National Party is so confused about its position on these matters that it did not even have the wherewithal to put up an amendment to this bill saying that it does not want workers to get 4 weeks’ annual leave. Why did Dr Wayne Mapp not do that, if he is so productive and efficient? Why did he not follow his leader’s lead and propose it as National Party policy? Maybe it is because National is not really sure that it could get away with that. It did try to take 50 percent of workers’ wages off them when they went off sick.

Dr Wayne Mapp does not portray the real situation for those freezing workers that he spoke of. We asked the Business New Zealand representative when he came before the committee whether he lost 50 percent of his wage when he went off sick. I am still waiting for the answer, because he mumbled and jumbled around and said that if Business New Zealand required him to be productive and have such an agreement, then he could expect to maybe lose that sort of money. But he was an ex - meat industry representative and he did not tell the committee that he lost 50 percent of his wages when he went off sick for a day. He proposed, and the National Party proposes, to get rid of the law that states that people who go off sick get the same amount of earnings as they would if they had been at work, which was the law in this land for as long as I was in the workforce up until National changed the law.

So it is quite rich for the National Party to say that workers are getting paid a heck of a lot more when, in fact, the evidence that I heard was that they got up to 50 percent of their normal daily pay taken off them if they should go off sick. Let us be clear about that—the National Party is proposing to take the fourth week of annual leave off workers in this country, if it should ever be elected. Dr Wayne Mapp forgot to put that amendment forward last week. And it is saying that if workers go off sick under a National Government, they will lose 50 percent of their pay for the pleasure.

That is good to be able to go out and tell the workforce of New Zealand, because Dr Brash is on record as saying that we need to do things to keep New Zealand workers here instead of have them go over to Australia and create a skill shortage in this land. In Australia, of course, they have had 4 weeks’ annual leave for about 30 years. Workers also get their sick pay paid to them as per what they would have earned. But the National Party solution to a skills and labour shortage in New Zealand is to make it even worse for workers. Well, on that basis there is no point in discussing the matter any further in a debate such as this, because the National Party’s lunacy speaks loudly and people can understand it.

PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) : Maybe I can answer the question the member just posed to the National Party. I am not here trying to defend the National Party—

Darren Hughes: Always sticking up for the National Party.

PETER BROWN: No, I am not always sticking up for the National Party, but the member raised a good point and I thought I would at least like to address it, at the start. When people work for wages and overtime, they generally get extra for working extended hours, weekends, and public holidays, and New Zealand First supports that element in this bill. But when an employee is on a salary, as the member over there referred to, that employee would not lose part or half of his or her pay for going off sick. I point out to the honourable member that an employee does not earn any more when he or she works overtime at night, at weekends, or on public holidays, and that is the balance of the whole thing. It is a different wage-type structure, which is why the employer answered accordingly at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee.

New Zealand First wanted to support this bill. We very much wanted to support it, because the 2003 legislation, in nautical language, was a stuff-up. We got it wrong. The select committee got it wrong. I will be attacked by members behind me, but we supported—

Hon Maurice Williamson: So it was nautical—the stuff-up—was it?

PETER BROWN: Well, that is nautical language. We are very kind in nautical circles.

Hon Maurice Williamson: I thought nautical was an aviation term.

PETER BROWN: Well, there we are—we learn something every day. But the legislation was wrong, and it needed to be corrected. This 2004 bill corrects a couple of areas. It corrects the area of sick leave, as the Minister has rightly pointed out. It puts some very limited basic controls in the system. That concerned employers and I think that that is reasonable. New Zealand First would have liked that to be a little bit tighter, but we can live with it. It is better than the 2003 legislation.

It does not touch the issue of the 4 weeks’ leave, and I want to make New Zealand First’s position quite clear on that: we are totally supportive of workers getting 4 weeks’ holiday a year. Indeed, that provision does not come in until the year 2007, and we would have liked to bring it in earlier. I want to make that position clear. We believe that that could have been done relatively easily. I notice that the Government has brought in the Working for Families legislation, and the provision could easily have been embraced in that legislation by using the tax system to bring it in a little earlier. But it is no big deal for it to come in, in 2007.

New Zealand First was also supportive of low-paid people getting time and a half for working on public holidays. We see no problem with that, at all, and we are quite supportive of it. But that 2003 legislation provided for people who volunteered to work on a public holiday to get time and a half on everything, as well as a day in lieu, if they were sick or for some reason could not work on the public holiday they had volunteered to work on.

Brent Catchpole: Bizarre.

PETER BROWN: My colleague says that that is bizarre. It sounds like something designed by Basil Fawlty and that had to be corrected. This bill corrects that, and New Zealand First is comfortable about it. But there is a problem—and I know that the Minister knows it—with relevant daily pay. That has gone a little too far, and it should have been addressed. An amendment was put forward by Dr Wayne Mapp at the Committee stage that really brought the whole matter back to what Labour wanted in the initial instance. We thought that that was the way to tidy it up, but it was not to be. United Future abstained, and the legislation went through. Now, United Future has told us that it was eating the elephant, piece by piece. We are still trying to work out why it is that in legislation about holidays we are talking about eating elephants, but I am sure the member over there has a reason. The United Future position sounded to New Zealand First as if its members were kissing the elephant’s rump, bit by bit, because they did have a chance to tidy this bill up, fairly and properly, in the interests of everybody.

Paul Adams: No.

PETER BROWN: Yes, you did. I can understand the member saying “No”—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): No, I did not—the member will please not bring the Speaker into the debate.

This part is very important. It is the third reading. I am pointing out why United Future members said no—they were not on the select committee. They were not permanent members of the select committee, did not volunteer to go on the select committee, did not turn up in the audience of the select committee, and neither did they read any of the submissions. Yet they abstained from quite a reasonable amendment, and they sit here telling us that they want to eat the elephant bite by bite.

I want to tell the member over there of another failing. United Future opposed the amendment in my name that related to this bill, which would have prohibited people on a salary—I am talking about the high-flyers now—from having their salary regarded as a composite agreement, as this bill allows. I trust that the National Party has done its homework. It has told us that Theresa Gattung, who is on a salary of $2.8 million—

Dr Wayne Mapp: It was a calculation.

PETER BROWN: It was a wrong calculation? She is on $2.8 million a year, and, under this bill, she can have her agreement pulled apart and put together again, so that if she works on a public holiday for a couple of hours, it is what—$10,000?

Dr Wayne Mapp: No, she can get $15,000.

PETER BROWN: Fifteen thousand dollars! I do not know how she will struggle through. I really do not know how she struggles through. I do not know how the United Future member can sit there. I see he is smiling now. I think he must regard it as a joke. He actually voted against an amendment that would have tidied that up.

Paul Adams: My amendment did the same thing. What’s your excuse?

PETER BROWN: I say to Mr Adams that his amendment did not do the same thing. The amendment that New Zealand First put in would have addressed the Theresa Gattung problem. For the member to sit over there and say that that is all OK is to treat this whole thing like a joke.

It is regrettable that New Zealand First cannot support this bill. We know that it goes part-way to addressing the situation, but we are not prepared to allow the relevant daily pay problem just to creep through the whole of society. It will have a huge adverse effect on some employment practices in this country, and I believe that many small employers will be looking twice over this sort of legislation before they decide on whether to employ somebody. This will be a balancing act for a small employer to go through before he or she puts someone on the payroll.

It is absolutely ridiculous that a person on a salary—particularly a high-flying salary—can claim something like thousands of dollars a day for working on a public holiday. It is absolutely disgraceful. I do not want to imply for one minute that Theresa Gattung will go in and pull her salary apart and then claim it, but the fact that she can is beyond belief. I think the public of New Zealand, when they get to know these sorts of facts, will wonder what the dickens we do in this House. In two sequences we have turned a relatively untidy piece of holidays legislation—the earlier Act—into very complicated legislation.

We went through this in 2003 and got it wrong by quite some. It was far worse than we in New Zealand First estimated, and I think it was far worse than many of the submitters who were concerned by the 2003 legislation thought. Now, this 2004 bill has tidied up two fairly minor parts of that legislation, but we should be dealing with the whole thing. Let us do it once and do it right. This was the opportunity. I have to say again that if United Future had paid a little bit more attention to the detail, turned up to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, actually got the submissions—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I let the member go the first time, but I remind the member that it is a longstanding convention that members do not refer to the absence of members, not only from the Chamber but also from select committees. That does not stop members from criticising other members for failing to vote, failing to answer questions, or failing to take part in debate. I refer the member to Speaker’s ruling 23/7, a ruling of Speaker Algie.

PETER BROWN: I am sure that you are correct, Mr Speaker, but I just point out that United Future is not on that select committee. I acknowledged that from the word go, and I am trying to point out that had they shown a little bit more interest and got themselves on the committee by leave of the House, Parliament might have been better informed and we would have better legislation out of it.

SUE BRADFORD (Green) : The Green Party continues to oppose this bill, which we see as both unnecessary and, in the main, detrimental to workers’ interests. The main reason given by the Government in putting this Holidays Amendment Bill forward has been that it needs to address what it calls “unintended consequences” arising from last year’s Holidays Act. However, we believe that this justification of unintended consequences is neither reasonable nor logical. Rather, it is clear that Labour has given in to well-applied pressure from certain employer groups that were not prepared to rest easy once the original Holidays Act was passed. It is a worry that when we come to future employment relations or other social justice - orientated legislation, the Government may be equally keen to backtrack if sufficient influence is exerted, even after the original bill becomes law.

The only amendment in front of us today for which the Green Party can see any justification at all is possibly the change to make sure that workers do not get time and a half on top of time and a half in penal rates on public holidays. If there was doubt about this in the wake of the original Act, and there is some question about whether in fact such doubt exists, we acknowledge that there is a need to clarify. We are also pleased that at least following consideration in the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, it has been made clear that penal rates do not include payments for other types of days, such as for the sixth and seventh day of work.

However, the major part of this bill deals with changes around the provision of proof of sickness or injury to employers when an employer “has reasonable grounds to suspect that the sick leave being taken by the employee is not genuine.” This flies in the face of the progressive reform brought forward in the original Holidays Act that allowed workers 3 days’ sick leave before being required to provide medical evidence to their employer. Business representatives seem to have convinced the Government that there was a desperate unintended consequence as a result of the Holidays Act being passed, in terms of a lot more false sick leave being taken than normal. However, neither unions nor the Green Party have been able to identify substantive proof of this, and I think it is a real pity that Labour has seen fit to partially reverse its original good intentions.

It is a disgrace that the Government, which has now turned its back on those intentions, is now requiring medical certificates for short-term absences due to sick or domestic leave, even just for 1 day. What we have ended up with is, in fact, a situation worse than the old 1981 Holidays Act, which was silent on the issue of sickness certificates.

This bill will now open the way for a whole lot of consequences that will potentially have adverse impacts on employees and their families. Among them is the risk that workers will have to disclose private medical information about themselves, or their dependants, to their employer. There is the risk that they, or their children, will be forced to travel to see a doctor, even when they are better off in bed, or when there is no reason for them to see a medical professional at all; and that workers will be forced to pay a high, upfront consultation fee when they have not got the money on them at the time, and with no guaranteed time frame for reimbursement. There is also no end of uncertainty about what “reasonable grounds to suspect” means—that is, when an employer can plausibly make the demand on a staff member to provide proof of sickness or injury. There is also a total lack of clarity about what the consequences might be for workers who do not comply with an employer demand to provide such proof.

This amendment is not only retrogressive, in terms of going back on the originally progressive nature of the Holidays Act, but it also introduces a whole new layer of ambiguity in potential compliance costs for both employers and unions. As for those workers who do not have a union to represent them in cases where they are harassed for proof of injury or illness, I really fear the extent to which they might be dragged back into the dark ages by this misguided legislation. There is no need for this bill. The Green Party will be voting against it, and I just hope we do not see any more legislation like this from a Labour Government in this or any other term of Parliament.

PAUL ADAMS (United Future) : I rise on behalf of United Future to support this legislation. By the sound of some of the speakers in the House this afternoon, I should be rising to support this bill with my head held low, but I stand with my head held high to support this legislation. I stand as an employer. I stand as somebody who has employed staff for in excess of 30 years, and continues to employ staff. I am amazed at some of the misunderstanding about this bill that we are dealing with in the House today, the Holidays Amendment Bill. This is not the Holidays Bill of 2003, which United Future voted against, as I have said previously. This bill amends the Act. These are amendments that improve that Act. Many Opposition members have said that somehow United Future members had a miraculous row of choices whereby we could have chosen this or that—but we did not. I tell Mr Mapp that we need to understand that the Labour Government does not want, or accept at this stage, ordinary daily pay. That is why, with Green support, the Government brought relevant daily pay into the original bill. United Future does not agree with relevant daily pay, but we are not looking at relevant daily pay in the legislation that is before the House.

Dr Wayne Mapp: You had the opportunity.

PAUL ADAMS: There was no opportunity for that. If we had been dealing with the issue of relevant daily pay, let me assure the House we would not have this legislation to deal with, full stop. So, therefore, United Future is supporting this bill because it does improve the legislation. The good news for my friends in Business New Zealand, and those people who are so against this legislation, is that they can give their members a choice. If they want to continue paying the rates under the Holidays Act, they are entitled to do so; they are free to. Let them go on and pay their workers the extra rates. I ask those employers who choose to do that to send me an email, because I would be very interested to see how many will pay the extra rates.

This bill is an improvement. The reality is that it is good news for the many small businesses that will be able to reduce these costs because this legislation has been passed. Many amendments were brought in, and United Future did bring in an amendment to cover people on commission sales and people who were employed on a retainer basis. I was interested that no other party in the House supported that, which absolutely amazed me.

The other amendment I was disappointed to see fail, because of the Green Party vote, concerned the rights of the Brethren Church. The Greens thought that their view on religion was greater than that of the others, so they chose to vote it down, and I think that was a sad day for business. Here is one of the diligent groups of employers in this country now facing huge challenges that could have been quite easily avoided. I was disappointed at that. It absolutely amazes me that Opposition parties can stand up and give United Future such a hard time for supporting this legislation that they know improves the Holidays Act. Many employer groups have rung me over this legislation, but not one of them—not one of them—has not agreed that this legislation is an improvement.

I was interested to hear my colleague Gordon Copeland, speaking the other day on other legislation, make a very relevant point, because it brought clarity to the ground that United Future has stood firmly on, and will continue to stand firmly on, and that is the middle ground.

Our colleagues on our left in the Labour Party have members in their midst who have some views that we would see as extreme. Likewise, there are colleagues on my right in the National Party who have some views that United Future would consider to be extreme. When we come to legislation such as this, when one stands from a central viewpoint as we do in United Future, listening to the concerns of the members of the Labour Party on the left and understanding the philosophy that they come from, then also listening to those on the right and understanding their philosophies, we then come back to our key word, the word that they all smile about, and that is the common-sense decision on whether it is better for the direction of the country, whether it is better for employers, and whether it will help in the production costs of the nation. The answer, when we ask those questions in relation to this legislation, has to be yes. That is why United Future says yes in its support for this bill. It is because it brings the legislation into a position that is closer to where we think it should be.

The bill is not perfect. We would have also loved to have the issue of relevant daily pay dealt with, but that was not a choice in this legislation.

Stephen Franks: Why not?

PAUL ADAMS: Because this legislation, as I said, would not have appeared in the House if that issue had to be dealt with at that time. So, it was not a choice. Therefore, United Future is supporting this legislation. I know there will be many, many small-business people out there who will be thankful that we have at least one party in the House that uses its common sense and will not vote on an ideological philosophy and will not say yes because the other party says no, or no because the other party says yes. We actually take the time to weigh matters up and make our decision based solely on common sense. New Zealand will be a better place as a result of this measure. Employers will have an easier time in a very challenging market because United Future has supported this legislation, and we do so.

STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) : I waited to take the call on behalf of the ACT party on this legislation so that I could listen to the contribution from United Future. I was in the Chamber in the Committee stage when a United Future member made quite a point of noting the things that United Future thought were still wrong with the law in this area, and complaining about the burden it put on employers, then, at the end of what I thought was an excellent speech, saying that they would vote for it because it was better to take a step towards a target than not to take any step at all. [Interruption] Mr Adams is pleased. He says that what I am saying is so true.

What baffled me, of course, was why when United Future knew that it held the balance of power it did not simply use it to stipulate what was right, to do what was proper to achieve a law that actually helped employers. I am not talking about the big employers such as the employer of Theresa Gattung. I am not concerned about the hundreds of thousands of dollars that she could hold her employers to ransom for by showing that she has been working on the weekends. I am not even speaking for Carter Holt Harvey, which finds that it gets employees with 100 days accrued sick leave, or for the meat companies that have found that since the law was changed in April, employees now take 50 percent more sick days than they did before, and that because Monday is a convenient day for employees being off, they sometimes cannot start the chain. No, I am thinking about the ordinary backbone employers of this country, such as the electrician whose wife is doing the books and keeping the wage records at night, after she has done everything else for the family, and trying to make head or tail of a law that the Government could not make head or tail of.

This bill amends law that was drafted by the union because the employers, business people, and even the unions were silly enough to ask a Labour Government to fix a longstanding sore in our employment law. The Holidays Act had been a problem for decades. The Holidays Act had been confusing and there were anomalies in it, so the employers—foolishly, in hindsight—and the business people of this country said to a Labour Government: “Would you please fix it.” Well, the inevitable happened. The Government turned to its union paymasters and said: “Oh, here’s an opportunity. They want this on the agenda. Tell us what we should do.” So we had an amendment to the Holidays Act that included every wish list of the unions, to the extent that they ended up with a de facto double-pay arrangement when people were not even working. When asked how this happened and why it was not foreseen, the answer of parties like the ACT party was: “Well—it was.” It is the sort of thing we said would happen when the legislation was going through, but the Government ignored it.

When it became a gross embarrassment to the Government, it said: “Oh, well, we didn’t think about it.” There is a simple reason for that. When one has one’s hand on the pen and one is drafting legislation, it is like a crossword—one can understand the implications of all of those very complex interrelationships. But if one has just picked up what the paymaster has said to put through—if one is a Minister who has just taken what the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions has designed—it is not understood.

Helen Duncan: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I believe that the word “paymaster” in the context in which the member used it is out of order.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I thank the honourable member for that. I am not sure that it was out of order. I invite the member to continue his speech, and I will listen carefully.

STEPHEN FRANKS: When I was a member of the Labour Party the relationship between it and the unions was one of its boasts. The union movement considered that the members were its representatives. It is interesting to me that this modern Labour Party, having pushed through a series of bills to pay back its supporters, is now taking objection to a speech in which I am saying that in a succinct way, and it is saying that it is unparliamentary to draw the connection. I see that Mr Swain is in the House. The Corrections Bill was basically for the corrections unions. However, back to where we were—

Hon Taito Phillip Field: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The member is well aware that a suggestion that any members of this House are under the influence or control of those outside is out of order.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): The member is treading on thin ice. I refer him to Speakers’ rulings 47/3 and 47/4, where it is stated that it is not in order to say that a member has been dictated to, dominated, has received instructions, or been directed. I ask the member to be very careful and I bring him to order.

STEPHEN FRANKS: I have been careful to avoid saying “directed”. I think that in many arrangements such as these it is willing on both sides, but that does not take away from the fact that it is give and take and quid pro quo for favours done. I have no doubt that in this case the Labour Party would have been delighted to be able to move to a more sensible holidays law because this is a political embarrassment for it, but it could not do so because it could not withstand the reaction it would get from its union backers.

This is significant for ordinary employers because it is so complex that it changes the patterns of employment. This kind of law, together with the other changes that have been made, is part of the reason why we have consultants infesting so many areas. It is part of the reason why there are middlemen now living off the complexity of employment law, why there are contractors everywhere providing labour-only services, and why people do not do a lot of their own human resource management. It has become a job for experts. It is so hard to keep on top of Holidays Act requirements, harassment law, occupational safety and health requirements, and all the multifarious other obligations that the ordinary employer, the ordinary person who decides to start a business—the ordinary electrician, as I said, the person who starts a restaurant or a cafe, the person who happens to be the poor part-time accountant for a charity—is starting to say: “It’s not worth it. Let’s just get a contractor. I can’t actually keep up.”

Of course, most employers have a decent relationship with their employees and they have a tacit mutual agreement to ignore the complexities of the law. They probably do not even bother with an employment agreement, even though that is now against the law. They actually have a straightforward, common-sense relationship between two people, which has been the pattern in New Zealand for generations. But they are taking a risk. They cannot comply with the law because it is too hard, so they rely on having decency on both sides. The problem with law such as this holidays legislation is that it is exploited by people who are not in that pattern. It is exploited by people who decide that cheating is worthwhile. And it is cheating—it is dishonest to take a sickie when one knows that he or she will get double pay or pay and a half. It is a form of dishonesty, and it breeds in our employment environment a culture of Spanish practices, as it used to be called in the days when one was allowed to be racist about it. But it is a culture where cheating and pulling little tricks like this becomes normal.

Hon Paul Swain: You should not be racist.

STEPHEN FRANKS: Has Mr Swain never used the term “Spanish practices”? He is disowning his past now, I take it.

When pulling one’s weight was part of being employed, one recognised that by making a sick claim or making repeated sick claims—a situation that, obviously, some employers are now facing—one actually cheats oneself. Many employees try to justify their sick leave claims by feeling sick. The real effect is that that kind of chiselling at the truth goes through into other things. It becomes a conniving at breaching safety regulations, and avoiding a whole lot of requirements of the employer. The original intent of the holidays provision in a bill like this—which was to allow everyone a chance to refresh, recharge their batteries, have weekends, and celebrate festival days together—gets lost in a morass of fine analysis of the rules to take unfair advantage. I was interested, of course, that the Greens, I think, are opposing this—

Sue Bradford: We are.

STEPHEN FRANKS: Of course, Sue Bradford’s experience of employment is with the unemployed workers union. It is very hard to know why the Greens do not see the deep irony in sending down here to talk about holiday pay for workers, someone who is proud of the fact that she has devoted most of her life to people who refuse to work. Most of her experience has been with people who would not have had paid holidays because they were not in employment. What we have, of course, is the double whammy of a union hand on the pen on this, and the Greens urging that it be made more severe, and United Future deciding not to rock the boat and voting with the Government, and the employer and the employers’ wage clerks paying the price.

HELEN DUNCAN (Labour) : Well, it was interesting to hear that member speak. He has just displayed the utter contempt he has for the working people of this country. That speech was symptomatic of the way ACT thinks about the workers of this country. I found it very difficult to listen to.

The Holidays Amendment Bill was introduced to clarify some areas of uncertainty that arose with the introduction of some provisions of the Holidays Act. It was not intended as a review of the Government’s core policies on holidays and leave entitlements. This Government believes that workers are entitled to a fair deal in their employment, and that the conditions surrounding leave, sick leave, and holidays are an important part of their employment conditions.

A couple of issues have come up, and I want to correct some of the things that have been said. The issue of relevant daily pay has been raised as though it is some terrible bogey. Actually, there would be no need for the relevant daily pay provision to be in the bill were it not for the fact that over the last decade, the 1990s, the provisions of the Employment Contracts Act meant that workers’ right to a reasonable living wage was eroded to the point that anyone who was off sick could lose up to half of his or her daily pay. Some people might think that that is all right. But if a person is on a low wage and sticking to a budget that is pretty close to the bone, it is very difficult to go off sick—even though that person might need that sick leave—if that person knows that half of his or her pay will go. That is because basic pay was eroded to the point where it was at the minimum wage level. Everything on top of that was regarded as a productivity bonus, or there was some other way of arranging it, so that people did not get their full pay unless they met pre-arranged targets. It was hugely unfair to the workers. It might have suited the employers, but it was hugely unfair to workers, and it meant that most employees did not take the leave that they needed and were entitled to. That issue of relevant daily pay is a problem only because employers, by their sharp practices, have made it a problem.

The issue of sick leave was quite difficult for the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee to grapple with. I agree with some of what Sue Bradford said, as I do not think it is anything like the problem that the employers have made it out to be. Some of the figures that were shown at the select committee were somewhat spurious, and I saw no proof for those figures. But I have to say that all of us who have worked know that there have always been a few people who were always off on a Monday or a Friday. Some employers’ figures did show a pattern with some employees, and we thought that if there is a pattern of people taking advantage, and disadvantaging their workmates as well, then we need to put in a provision that will deal with that.

I think that the committee worked very hard to put in a provision that was fair to everyone. The employer cannot just ask someone for proof of sickness. The employer has to be able to show due cause, which means there has to be a pattern, or something similar, for the employer to be able to ask for proof of sickness, and we have said that if the employer chooses to do that, then the employer has to pay. I think that makes it fair to both parties. I know that workers who work with people who take advantage of their fellow workers in that way will appreciate it, as well. It is not a common practice, but it does happen occasionally. I think that we have put together some improvements that will make sure that the holidays legislation will function even better than it has before, and will make sure that the workers of New Zealand will get a fair deal and will get their leave entitlements.

Hon ROGER SOWRY (National) : The previous speaker, Helen Duncan from the Labour Party, was on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, and spent a lot of her time sneering and spluttering away at every employer’s submission—a more anti-employer Labour member one could not find. She is someone who has no understanding of the risks of employment, and she was not interested during the select committee process in any of the submissions made by employers.

This bill is not one that Labour wanted to bring into the House; it is a bill that it had to bring into the House after Margaret Wilson totally messed up the holidays legislation. Margaret Wilson came into the Parliament, and passed one of her ideologically pure pieces of legislation around amending the holidays legislation. The National Party said at the time that it would not work, and voted against it. It did not work. Businesses all over the country either closed on public holidays or faced horrendous extra costs. In some areas, such as bereavement leave and sickness leave, the costs and the amount of leave taken have soared. The new Minister, in an attempt to quell what was a growing amount of noise around the issue, decided that he would pass legislation to fix it by Labour weekend. So here we are, passing this bill just a few days before Labour weekend, when every employer has said it will not fix the problems.

There are two groups in Parliament who are supporting this bill: the Labour Party, and the United Future party. Labour has chosen to ignore the submissions. To give the Labour members credit, I acknowledge that they sat on the select committee, read the submissions, and listened to the submitters, whereas the United Future members did not. The Labour Party made a decision to ignore the overwhelming weight of the submissions. It decided that the Retailers Association, the Hospitality Association of New Zealand, Air New Zealand, Business New Zealand, Carter Holt Harvey, the meat industry, and Heinz-Wattie Ltd, all of whom appeared before the committee—not to mention all the groups that did not appear before the committee but gave written submissions—were wrong, and that Labour was right. We will see whether Labour is right. We will see over the Christmas holidays whether businesses do open over the Christmas and New Year period. The information we have had—and, I suspect, that the Minister has had, as well—is that they will not. The hospitality industry has said that this bill solves nothing. The manufacturing sector, in particular, is worried about it. Those employers who manufacture 7 days a week are very concerned about this legislation, and many of them are saying they will reconfigure their shifts so that they do not open. This bill does not solve the problems.

The Government made the choice, in its arrogance, to ignore everything it was told. The United Future members have made the same choice, not out of arrogance but out of ignorance. They have not read anything, but at least they have been honest enough to tell the business community they did not read its submissions. They did not alert the business community to the way they would vote. They keep that secret throughout the process, but they did support one group of employers. United Future did decide that the Brethren Church could have what it wants, but not the Catholics, the Methodists, the Protestants, or the agnostics. It is too bad for them. They cannot get what they want, but the Brethren Church can get what it wants. So United Future voted for what the Brethren Church wanted, but not for what anybody else wanted. I am not sure of the logic behind that.

I have to say that a United Future member, whose name I forget—what is his name?

Hon Maurice Williamson: “Grisly Adams”.

Hon ROGER SOWRY: Mr Adams has at least told members of the business community that he did not read their submissions. He told them that he made his decision without having any regard to them. He has stuck to a line that basically says Labour wanted this legislation and United Future thought it would help. He has said United Future is sorry it did not talk to businesses and did not listen to the submissions, but that if the legislation does not work United Future will support businesses next time around.

Stephen Franks: “Come back to us!”

Hon ROGER SOWRY: Yes, “Come back to us!”, as the ACT member said. That is about as weak as one could get. In the House Mr Adams likened this measure to taking a bite from an elephant. So the problem he likens to the size of an elephant, and the fix he likens to one bite of it, and he says not to worry because business can come back to United Future! The mess regarding holidays is not fixed by this bill, and I ask the United Future member how he can come into the House and give a speech like the one we just heard. Mr Adams said he is really, really disappointed that people did not back the Brethren Church, but is United Future prepared to back employers from other religious denominations? What is the difference? How can the member say he will vote so that members of the Brethren Church have a choice around union membership, but not members of other churches? How can he say that? I do not know how he can say that.

I do not want to rain on Mr Adams’ parade, but the other reason I want to ask him how he can say that is that, unfortunately for Mr Adams, the clause concerning the Brethren Church is in the next bill that we are to consider. It is not in the Holidays Amendment Bill; it is in the employment relations bill. So the amendment he was talking about, which he was disappointed people had not voted for, actually is not in the bill. He nods, and says that is a fair point. He is on to it! He is sharper than the average bear. That man did not read the submissions and did not sit on the committee, but he came to the House and bleated about people who did not support an amendment that is not even in the bill but is an amendment to a different bill that is to be considered in a different debate, at a later time. But by gosh, has he got business interests at heart! Is he not sensitive! Is he not sensitive to their needs and concerns! That is why, when businesses criticise him, he gets very irate—but, by gosh, he is on to their concerns! I know that the members of the business community who are listening to the debate are saying to themselves that it was really worth the effort to lobby the United Future party, because it really listened to them! That speech made by that member really showed that up.

Finally, I say to the Minister that there are people around this country who work on public holidays because they enjoy the extra money they get over that time. The Minister nods. I am talking about students, in particular. Many of those students will now be denied the opportunity to have a job.

Hon Paul Swain: Why?

Hon ROGER SOWRY: Because the hospitality industry, for example, gave us examples at the select committee whereby employers are now writing contracts that exclude public holidays. Employers are saying that they will hire people and that they can work on every day except the public holidays. I say to the Minister that that means two things.

Stephen Franks: This summer! This summer they will get less.

Hon ROGER SOWRY: This summer—that is right. Employers will either close on public holidays or, as they told the select committee, they will pay people to work on the public holidays—and they will not be the regular staff or the students the employers have hired; they will be mates, and other people—by way of something like a bar tab. We heard them say at the select committee that that was what the Government would force them to do. The Government is forcing businesses into closing or, if they want to open, into doing something in the black economy. Is that what the Government wants? The Government members sit in silence. Why did the Labour members on the select committee not tell the Minister that that was what people were saying? Why did Ross Wilson not explain that to the Minister when he was in the lobby? Why did he not explain it then?

What we have seen with this bill is a hopeless process that was all about spin, rather than substance.

Hon Paul Swain: That’s hurtful.

Hon ROGER SOWRY: The Minister does not care, I know, about this stuff. But I say to the Minister that this bill does not fix the problem, and he is hurting some of the very people whom he purports to be trying to help.

MARK PECK (Labour—Invercargill) : Let me say to the members opposite that farmers, when they get into a bit of strife, threaten not to put the rams out, but they do put the rams out, and do members know why they put the rams out? Because their neighbours will. I have had dealings with the hospitality industry for some considerable time, and I know very well that as soon as one hotel opens they all will open—on Christmas Day and on any statutory holiday. When their competitors are open they will be open, and they will employ staff, and they will pay them, and in Queenstown right now they are paying them a premium because they need them.

So I say to members opposite that they should stop their bleating. They are 13 points behind in the polls, and here they are having a go at poor old United Future. What is the net gain of their undermining United Future? It is 2 percent. Maurice Williamson understands numbers; he knows how dumb that is. We are the guys those members should be attacking—not the United Future members. They are not National’s problem. United Future will not be the Government. We are the Government, and if National members cannot take stripes off us, they will never take stripes off anybody. I find the Opposition’s dealings with this particular bill to be quite extraordinary.

The only member in the House who was happy at the conclusion of Rodney Hide’s speech, as Michael Cullen was speaking, was Stephen Franks. Stephen Franks had a grin all over his face when Rodney Hide was getting done, because Stephen Franks knew that his time is not up yet. He has not quite joined National yet, and he still has an opportunity to be ACT leader.

I want to say one thing about this bill that is really important. I was in Australia quite recently, and I talked to quite a number of members of Parliament there. I talked to Liberal members of Parliament, National Party members of Parliament, Independent members of Parliament—and very few Labor members of Parliament, because they were all out door-knocking in the election campaign that was going on. I told them that a debate was going on in New Zealand on the Holidays Act. They asked what the debate was about, and I told them that we wanted to give workers 4 weeks’ paid leave from 2007, and that the National Party over here was saying that was outrageous. They asked what planet those members were on. People over there have had 4 weeks’ annual leave for 30 years. They asked why we punished our workers so much. Even the National Party and the Liberal Party in Australia know that one should not punish workers like that.

Leave is very important to people who work their guts out for the boss. And that is what workers do. Workers do not go to work and shirk. I worked in a pie factory on one occasion. It was great work, and hard. The people there worked hard. I worked in a supermarket, lumping sacks of spuds around. I was so fit—it was great. Workers work hard, and they need time off. Even members opposite need time off. They probably need time off now to start door-knocking. [Interruption] They do get 4 weeks.

I suppose that we should not be too surprised that National opposes this measure, because it is going back to its old philosophy, and its old philosophy is that it would sell Christmas. The National Party would sell Christmas. Don Brash will take a holiday—he will take your holiday. He will not take Mr Speaker’s holiday; he will take the workers’ holiday. Mr Speaker will always get a holiday; we will make sure of that. National would take the workers’ holidays, and that is outrageous in the extreme.

This bill is a good bill. I am a little bit sorry that, at the end of the day, the Greens could not find their way clear to support it. This bill is a good bill that tidies up some areas of concern in the legislation. I suppose that if we have come to a point where both ACT and the Greens disagree with the bill, we have got it right.

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga) : I want to make it clear to the drive-time audience out there listening to me tonight, waiting to hear about this bill, that this bill—the Holidays Amendment Bill—that we are trying to do a third reading of tonight is really what is referred to out in the business world as a fix-up of the muck-up. I accept that one has to be careful how one says that, and I will not say it quickly. It is a fix-up of the muck-up. Last year this Government passed the Holidays Act, and it was told at the time that it was a muck-up. That was even mentioned in the minority report of the select committee. The Government was told. United Future, the common-sense party, even voted against it because it was such a hopeless bill. The Government was told that there would be consequences that would be enormously damaging to business. But did the Government listen? No, it did not listen. There was not a mutter, not a murmur, not a syllable.

What happened is now legendary. The disastrous results for business, in terms of the extra costs that it sustained from that legislation, had to be addressed. Margaret Wilson got the sack because the North Korean and Cuban model was not working. Then “Swainy and the boys” were brought in to do the fix-up of the muck-up. Well, we have to say to Paul Swain, the Minister of Labour, that this bill is a very, very bad way to fix up a huge muck-up. I shall use United Future’s analogy. United Future members, bless them, said in the House today, and during the Committee stage, that they know that this bill does not fix it up properly, and that, frankly, they saw it as taking a bite out of an elephant. How does one eat an elephant? One bite at a time was United Future’s answer. Well, my response to United Future members in the Committee stage was to say: “How does one swallow a dead rat? Whole!”. That is what this bill is; this bill is a dead rat that we are being forced to swallow.

What I found interesting about the analogy—to take it a little bit further—was that a member from United Future went on about the rights of Brethren, about how disappointed he was that his amendment about that issue was not being supported, that that was an outrage, and that people should support his amendment. It turned out that that issue was not even in this bill! When United Future members took a bite out of the elephant, it was the wrong elephant! The elephant that they meant to have a bite from is wandering around blissfully unaware of anything, and there is another elephant somewhere with a huge chunk out of his bum that United Future took, and he does not know why! That is how informed United Future is on this bill!

Let us get serious about what this bill actually is supposed to do. It is supposed to say to somebody that if he or she is on leave and gets sick, then he or she should not be getting the unbelievably stunningly weighted levels of payment that the Holidays Act entitles that person to. But the most insidious little element in this whole thing is something called equivalent daily pay.

Hon Paul Swain: Relevant.

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: I get equivalent and relevant mixed up. The Minister is correct. I tell members and the drive-time audience listening to this what that relevant daily pay means. Not only—[Interruption] They heard that I would be on; there is a big audience out there, I can tell members. Not only does a person get his or her basic pay in this relevant daily pay; the Minister says we should add on all the things that the person could be entitled to while he or she is working. I can understand why some workers get extra things. I am a big fan of bonus payments. If people turn in a staggeringly good performance of the job they are supposed to do, if they produce thousands more widgets than the manager thought they would, they should get a bonus because they achieved fantastic things for the company. I do not ever support some of the things that I used to get when I was a driver for Refrigerated Freight Lines, Wattie’s, and so on. We used to get wet money, and cover money if we had to put tarpaulins on, and rope money, and all that.

But this is the rub. The Government said that it would work out a person’s relevant daily pay by taking that person’s basic rate—and that is accepted—then adding on all those things that the person could get in specific circumstances. If a person was working out in the pouring rain, the Government would give him or her some relevant daily pay for it—an extra bit. If a person had to put on covers and ropes, or have a trailer or other extra conditions, the Government would add it in. But here is the nonsense: a driver from that trucking company who is on holiday on the Gold Coast, who is sunning himself in sunny Queensland, could, because of all those extra calculations, be paid more than the poor old driver working back here where it is not actually raining, and he does not have to use any covers or ropes!

Dr Wayne Mapp: He may get sweat money.

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: He might have sweat money. How bizarre is that? I want to get this clear; I think I have got this right. I understand that the relevant daily pay will be calculated based on the last 4 weeks’ pay. So the incentive is for someone to take vacation time straight after he or she has had a bonus payment. Bonus payments often come as a big spike, as Mr Tamihere will tell members. A person’s wages just run along in a flat line, then a big spike comes when that person gets a massive bonus. I am sure that John Tamihere, as the Minister for Small Business, knows how that works in small business. So what will a person do? He or she will take his or her holidays in the 4 weeks after that big spike, so that his or her relevant daily pay has a big lump added into it—so the average is fantastic. Why would a person take his or her holidays 5 weeks later, when that spike’s effect has gone through? How mad is that?

Here is the rub. Labour members can go on all they like in the House—and they have—saying National Party members do not know what they are talking about, are hopeless, and so on. Members should forget about that. What did all of the major employer groups, all the major businesses, and even some of the Government-owned businesses say? Air New Zealand, bless its little heart, is owned by the Government, because of mismanagement by Michael Cullen and so on in not allowing Singapore to lift the cap and buy in—but, never mind, it is a Government-owned airline now. It said that the Act was already costing it a fortune, and that this amendment bill would not fix it. That is what it said. Heinz-Wattie, Carter Holt Harvey—I cannot remember them all; there is a plethora of them—said the same. I would be very happy to yield my time to the Minister so that he could tell us why he did not listen to the plethora of submissions from businesses.

Dr Wayne Mapp: He’s from the unions.

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: That is right. He comes from the North Korean model side of things. I think I heard him say at one stage that employers were all right, but he would not want his daughter to marry one—I think that was his line. Perhaps he said that some of his best friends were employers—although he does not like to say that too often in the Labour caucus. That is what Labour members think of employers—that they are evil and are out there to drive workers into the ground. It is the old cloth-cap, Joe Hill, 1920s, North American railway worker’s view. Well, that is not how it works.

What about the entertainment industry and the hospitality industry, which made it quite clear that if this bill was the fix-up of the muck-up, then they would literally not be able to open on a public holiday, or they would open through the devious means of giving special payments to somebody who was not part of the normal workforce, or, worse still, they would do what they have done up to now, which is add a premium to their charges?

• Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: I seek the leave of the House to table sick leave hours and wages figures from the Alliance meatworks in Nelson, which are pertinent to the debate.

• Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: I am delighted to have 2 minutes and 5 seconds remaining—although it will be less than that now. But I am indebted to my colleague Nick Smith for tabling those figures, because they reaffirm what we have heard from a number of various industries—that the cost of the Holidays Act, which was put in place by the Government, the cost of the muck-up that the Government made, has put prices and costs for companies through the ceiling.

We wanted to see United Future putting the blowtorch to the Government, telling the Government that unless it fixed the bill properly it would not have the support of United Future. The Greens are not supporting this legislation, New Zealand First is not supporting this legislation, and National most certainly is not supporting it. The only way that the Government is getting it through is by relying on United Future. So the power lay in its hands, absolutely. Paul Adam’s lame analogy of taking one bite out of an elephant really should be treated with the contempt—

Simon Power: What?

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: I hear one of my colleagues say “What?”. That is what Mr Adams said—that the whole Holidays Act is an absolute muck-up, but this fix-up of the muck-up is the equivalent of taking a bite out of an elephant. Mr Adams then went on to give a long speech about how United Future members supported the view of the Brethren on this legislation, and so on—

Simon Power: He was speaking to the wrong bill!

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: That is right; so he has even taken the bite out of the wrong elephant! But it is sad that United Future did not put the blowtorch to the Government, point out that United Future is the party of common sense—although that is very debatable—and tell the Government that what United Future wanted it to do was to fix up the muck-up, not just tinker with it.

Mr Adams used another analogy, which I thought was very dangerous in military terms. He said that this bill is taking us one step closer to the target. Well, one has to be very careful when one is out on the rifle range, because often target ranges have been set up on minefields. If one takes one step forward, that may be one’s last step.

As far as I am concerned, I have no respect for a Government that was warned of the consequences—and it was—then comes back and says that they were unintended consequences, and that that is what we are fixing up. The bill is a disgrace and National is going to vote against it.

JILL PETTIS (Labour—Whanganui) : I am very pleased to support this bill.

Hon RUTH DYSON (Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment (CYF)) : I move, That the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill be now read a second time. The bill furthers a number of the Government’s objectives to support working parents on the birth or adoption of a child. This includes ensuring that the paid parental leave scheme is accessible to a wider number of employees, encouraging female workforce attachment, supporting families with leave and job protection, supporting the health and well-being of new mothers and babies, and improving New Zealand’s compliance with international human rights instruments that provide rights to paid maternity leave.

The bill contains three key changes to the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act. First, it provides new entitlements for employees not currently eligible for parental leave entitlements under the principal Act on the birth or adoption of a child. Currently, an employee must be employed with the same employer for at least an average of 10 hours a week during the immediately preceding 12 months to be entitled to maternity leave and parental leave. The bill provides that employees with between 6 months’ and 12 months’ service with the same employer, for an average of 10 hours per week, will be eligible for paid parental leave for 13 weeks from 1 December this year, to be extended to 14 weeks from 1 December next year.

Secondly, the bill extends the duration of parental leave payments. Currently, they are for 12 weeks, and, as I mentioned, from 1 December this year will go to 13 weeks, with an additional week from 1 December next year. Thirdly, the bill provides a new entitlement to 1 week’s unpaid paternity leave for partners who have between 6 and 12 months’ service with the same employer. The bill also provides that employees may transfer their entitlement to parental leave payments to their spouse or partner. If that happens, the bill provides that the spouse has extended partner’s paternity leave for the period of payment in those circumstances.

The bill returns to the House with a relatively small number of technical amendments that relate to the commencement of the legislation. Amendments to the commencement provide that the Act comes into force on its assent in relation to a small range of circumstances. This relates to a small group of employees who may have an expected date of delivery on or after 1 December 2004, but their child is born early and therefore need to be able to access their entitlement to leave early, or need to access associated entitlements such as 10 days’ special leave for reasons associated with pregnancy, or need to apply for parental leave payments before 1 December 2004. Similar issues have also arisen in relation to the commencement of the extension to the duration of paid parental leave from 13 to 14 weeks from 1 December next year, and have been addressed by technical amendments to that part of the bill.

Most submissions generally supported the bill, suggesting that the move to include a wider range of employees is positive. However, a number suggested in particular that coverage should be extended to include self-employed women, and also those in part-time work of fewer than 10 hours a week, or short-term workers who have fixed-term jobs or are not in continuous employment for 6 months or more before giving birth.

Our Government introduced paid parental leave in 2002, and thousands of working families have benefited with leave and a period of payment on the birth or adoption of a child. We are conscious, though, that some people, such as self-employed people, still miss out under this bill. The feasibility of extending paid parental leave to the self-employed is currently being considered. I consider this a high priority, and I am committed to progressing this issue in the future as far as practicable.

I have already released a Supplementary Order Paper setting out further amendments that I intend to move at the Committee stage. This includes an amendment to recognise that in order to complete their training, junior doctors are required to work for more than one district health board. The amendment provides that junior doctors’ employment on rotation with more than one district health board be considered continuous employment for the purposes of parental leave entitlements.

This bill supports employers by providing them with access to support to keep a staff member when they have a baby. The bill strikes an appropriate balance by enhancing this opportunity for employers through the provision of taxpayer-funded payments and providing leave to those with between 6 and 12 months’ employment. The changes contained in this bill will be reviewed 1 year from implementation. In the meantime, I welcome the select committee’s report and thank all of those who took the time to make submissions.

JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) : Following on from the Minister who is promoting this bill, I think that it is good for members in the House to think about the people who do not benefit from this bill—those who are ineligible for these taxpayer-funded benefits. They are all self-employed women. I know that it is very difficult for Labour Party members to understand that. They do not know much about self-employed women and they do not know an awful lot about mothers. Having myself been a self-employed woman who is also a mother, I can tell members that it is a very, very tough job as a self-employed woman running a business, employing staff, to have to go without any assistance while one’s staff gets the benefit of that particular assistance. That is the first point.

The second point is women in part-time employment who are job sharing. They will miss out. Women in casual employment, part-time or full-time, will miss out. Women who cannot find formal employment, or choose not to engage in formal employment, will miss out, including women who choose to stop work to “have a family”. These are the women who are just going about being good mums. These mums and dads will miss out, but they will have the privilege of paying for someone else to have his or her particular choice to continue to work in the paid workforce. That would be fine if this bill were not so discriminatory.

More women will miss out. Women who, for many reasons, have had a new employer within a very short period of time will miss out, as will women who cannot have children, or choose not to. Those women and men who face infertility, who cannot have children, get to know that they will pay for the privilege of other people—they get to pay for that—and they do not get anything off their taxes for it.

Then there are the spouses of women who fit the above criteria, and all the spouses who do not fit the above criteria. All those spouses, all those people, miss out. The National Party is very, very pro people working, very pro women working, very pro men working, and very pro fairness. We will not support this bill because it is discriminatory against self-employed women, and all those other women and their spouses who I have just mentioned. This bill is discriminatory. [Interruption] All those women—and I suggest that that member consider that he has not lived enough life to know what he is talking about in this area—have the joy of paying extra taxes so that they can have the joy of having to pay for locums and replacements to come into their business to cover for them, and they get to pay the extra taxes so that their staff do not have to.

This would be a great provision if it included all women in this position, but it does not. It is very, very discriminatory. It is completely pro union. It is against the self-employed person. Yet so many women in New Zealand are self-employed—particularly in the rural sector. About 75 percent of people working in the rural sector are self-employed. For those of us who know something about farming and farming life, and having been brought up on one—and I let Mr Hughes know that—and having milked cows at the age of 9, I can tell that this particular situation will not do one thing for the farming women of New Zealand. It will not do one thing. All it will do is one bad thing, and that is to get those women and their spouses to pay extra taxes but they do not get the benefit of it, and that is so unfair.

Let us look at some of the comments that New Zealand farmers have made about this particular bill. They are direct quotes. “New Zealand couples should think carefully about the commitment required to raise a family. I do not think that paid parental leave encourages careful planning and commitment. Our society is looking more and more towards Government to solve every problem that life presents—a path that is unsustainable for the taxpayer.” That is a really, really good and independent attitude.

Here is another one: “I do not imagine that rural wives who work unpaid on the land will find it easy to access the benefits proposed.” Well, that person was right. Here is another one: “We want all taxation to be lowered and let people look after themselves, like we do.” That is what the farmers are saying. Here is another one: “Just another way of taxing businesses.” Farmers have a way of putting it, do they not? They really do. They do not muck around, they do not use all the flowery language. They just say it as it is. Here is another one: “Paid parental leave is a discriminatory provision that needs revising.” That is a very fair comment. Here is another one: “The paid parental leave payment in its current form is discriminatory against all mothers who choose to stay in the home to care for their families”—is that not right, I ask United Future—“especially farming wives who are often needed to help in the smooth running of the farm.” This could apply to all wives who are part of the self-employed business. They are being doubly penalised—in that by staying in the home they are already forgoing a wage packet, and now, because they are not part of the regular workforce, they are not eligible for the paid parental leave payment either. This bill is discriminatory.

What did the Social Services Committee in its majority verdict say on this bill? Of course, the National Party did not agree with this majority report. The only discrimination that this Labour-Green select committee wanted to be concerned about was possible discrimination, and I quote from page 8 of the commentary on the bill: “Another submission raised a wider issue relating to eligibility for parental leave entitlements and sought clarification on whether the legislation could be interpreted to exclude lesbian, gay or transgender workers.” That is fair comment.

It then went on to state that because gay, lesbian, and transgender couples cannot, at the moment, adopt a child under the Adoption Act this would be something that might be discriminatory against those people. Well, it might and that is certainly an issue. But what about the greater discrimination against those mothers who seek to stay at home to look after their children when they are young? I say good on those mothers. It is certainly something that a lot of us did not really want to have to do, because it is a very tough, tough job. Being a mother is the toughest job in the world. It is certainly the one that we are not given any assistance on, except through what we have learnt from our own parents. This is an aspect where that discrimination is being carried forward in this bill.

Why is it that we cannot care about self-employed women? Because certainly the Government’s response has always been: “Oh, well, there might be some problems with their taxes, or something. They don’t know how much income they earn.” But my goodness, that same Minister who is promoting this bill knows how to get them for their accident compensation payments. This Government knows how much those people earn, for income tax purposes. It is income tax, because these people actually work for their money. They do not get golden handshakes from the Waipareira Trust. They do not go around signing forms illegally. They do not do those sorts of things. They are just decent, hard-working New Zealanders. They are getting the privilege of paying for this sort of discriminatory legislation, which shows that this Government does not care a scrap about these decent, ordinary New Zealanders.

LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) : There is a word that describes that contribution but I understand it is not considered to be parliamentary language. When one looks up the dictionary, the word starts with the letter “h”. I think the members on this side of the House know precisely what I am talking about.

The National Party opposes paid parental leave. It voted against paid parental leave. At that time the Ayes were 66, the Noes 52. New Zealand National had 39 members. That must have been before the 2002 election, because National does not have 39 members now, and it will not have 39 members after the next election, if we listen to the contribution of Judith Collins. We heard that member say that the National Party opposes this bill because it is discriminatory against the self-employed. On that basis National would repeal paid parental leave for everyone, so that everyone misses out. Well, I want to mention that “h” word again, in the context of something that might be considered to be a bit rich. Katherine Rich was perfectly happy to take her full parliamentary salary when both her children were born, yet the National Party has the gall to stand here in this House and suggest that this Government does not have at heart the interests of women in this country.

I want to quote from the report of the Social Services Committee. The Minister’s comments are actually reported in the select committee report back. This is what the Minister who is responsible for this bill stated: “As part of this process officials are considering the overall framework, design, eligibility criteria and payment structure that could apply to self-employed people. Policy development relating to the self-employed is a very high priority for me and I am committed to progressing this issue further in the near future to include self-employed parents as far as practicable.” I will be looking to the other side of the House for support when the Minister is able to introduce the legislation, but I know that we will just see a continuation of the absolute hypocrisy we have already seen.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): Who was the member referring to in that last sentence?

LIANNE DALZIEL: To the National Party.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): The member will withdraw and apologise.

LIANNE DALZIEL: I withdraw and apologise.

BILL GUDGEON (NZ First) : New Zealand First supports the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill. There is a Supplementary Order Paper in my name, and it amends clauses 8, 9, 11, and 12. The bill implements Government policy to extend the duration of paid parental leave from 12 to 13 weeks at the end of 2004, and to extend it to 14 weeks in 2005, so it is done progressively over a 2-year period. It provides new maternity leave, partner’s/paternity leave, and paid leave entitlements to employees who have worked for the same employer for between 6 and 12 months. These employees are not currently covered by the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act. Further, the bill clarifies that for the purposes of determining entitlements under the Act, employment of a teacher at more than one State or integrated school is to be treated as one employment.

My Supplementary Order Paper amends the Parental Leave and Employment Amendment Bill. The purpose of this amendment is to ensure that the provision of paid parental leave is extended to those who are self-employed. I stand to be corrected. I think I heard the Minister mention that the Government would certainly look at the self-employed being able to receive this benefit. New Zealand First, as stated earlier, supports the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill with our amendments, which would assist the self-employed, especially those who are parents and those who are in the position of having additions to their family through pregnancy or adoption, and also taking into consideration that personnel involved are positive contributors in the way of revenue increase and employment.

So we are looking at a sector of the community who work very, very hard and contribute to the tax and employment position of our nation. The question that may be asked is this: would this be a fair and positive contribution to society and families? The situation today in many cases is that both parents are employed or self-employed. How can this Government play its part in giving assistance to those families who are in the process of adoption or natural birth? Social policies in New Zealand afford to many individuals benefits that in many cases those individuals have succumbed to or are taking advantage of. New Zealand First is taking into account the hard-working New Zealanders.

There are self-employed people across the board. They are hard-working people, who pay their taxes. In many cases they can afford accident compensation levies, and in many cases they cannot afford them. But these are people who, in the view of New Zealand First, should be entitled to the same parental leave as the employee. In the case of self-employed people, who will run the business? Who will take care of and pay those whom they might have to employ in the case of maternity leave? Where will that come from? I understand that the Government has made provision to support people in those cases. New Zealand First also takes care, and is observant of the needs, of people who are in the position of being self-employed. When we take their contribution to our nation into consideration, we see that it is astronomical. They provide an economy that many, many people would look twice at it. They provide that while taking the risks of being self-employed and, in many cases, they have to supply accident compensation for those who may be injured. That has happened on a farm that we know the history of.

Self-employed people include farmers. They also include farmers’ wives, because they too contribute to the agricultural sector of this nation. Why should they not be offered the opportunity of being paid parental leave? Where does the major export in our economy come from?

Hon Georgina te Heuheu: From farming.

BILL GUDGEON: It comes from farming. So why should self-employed people not be entitled to that same parental leave? I am sure farmers would enjoy and appreciate that very much. There are those who run their own small businesses. They have decided to do that because it is what they want to do and it is an extension of their talent and potential, so why should they not contribute, and in doing that, why should they not be offered the same blessing of being supported in the time when there is an increase in the family? So New Zealand First supports this bill on the condition that we look very, very seriously at the self-employed and the position and part they play in our nation.

PAUL ADAMS (United Future) : I rise on behalf of United Future, which will also support this legislation.

Hon Member: Family-friendly.

PAUL ADAMS: That is right; we are the family-friendly party. But I must agree with Judith Collins. Motherhood is the toughest job in the world, and I cannot speak from experience, sad to say. I can speak from a father’s perspective, but it is interesting. Mothers must do a fantastic job, because I have read many a survey on prisons and there are very, very few male prisoners—in fact, one could count them on one hand—who have a harsh word to say about their mothers. That just shows the benefit of motherhood.

United Future will take the Government at its word that it is working towards provisions for the self-employed. If it is said in the House, it cannot be disputed. We welcome that. Of course, United Future has a very simple answer to that problem. That is why we are great believers in income splitting. I think we are starting to return to seeing the benefit of both motherhood and fatherhood. Goodness knows, we also need in this nation to understand the ability and the importance of fathers, because—far more than we should ever be, sadly—we are a nation of fatherless children. If we can come to the fact of income splitting, the family will get extra income regardless of whether it is the father or the mother who chooses to stay at home to bring up the children, because they will have the benefits of income splitting.

Simon Power: It doesn’t exist.

PAUL ADAMS: No, I said United Future has been promoting income splitting, I say to Simon Power.

Coming back to the business of the self-employed, unfortunately a child does not have the right to choose the occupation of its parents. Therefore, if a child is unfortunate enough to be born to a mother who happens to be self-employed, that poor child does not get the same care and attention, over those vital weeks, as does the child whose mother is in employment.

Simon Power: What’s the Family Commission doing about it?

PAUL ADAMS: That is a very good question, I say to Mr Power. I will ask the commission members the next time I see them, and I will get back to the member as soon as I can.

The first of the two things the bill shows up is that the Government still does not fully understand, as I just mentioned, the position of mothers who have chosen to be self-employed, and the value of motherhood as a career. Many women today feel they do not get personal self-worth or self-esteem unless they have proven themselves in a secular, employed job. But I say “Well done” to mothers out there who have never been in the workforce, who have laboured diligently in their homes, and who have poured themselves out into their children. They have chosen a tremendous occupation. The mere fact that they do not get paid for it is secondary to the great job they do.

If we in this place started to recognise again the value of parenthood, which, of course, is at the core of all that United Future believes in, and started to promote motherhood and fatherhood as occupations—if we want to use that word—well worthy of pursuit, members would find that this nation would turn round in a lot of areas, including crime, burglaries, and all those things, far quicker than anything else we could do. We need to start to promote parenting again.

But, as I say, this legislation is heading in the right direction, and we welcome the fact that mothers will be able to spend time in those important first few months when their baby comes home. We have seen figures indicating it has helped with mothers who choose to breastfeed in those important few months, and that is well worthy of support. United Future supports this legislation.

Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (Deputy Leader—ACT) : I rise on behalf of the ACT party to speak on the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill. I begin by acknowledging the important role women have in New Zealand when they decide it is time to have a family. Every mother will be able to testify to the fact that bringing up children is not an easy task and to the consequences of having a child stay with her for the rest of her life. Children do not go away. So we are talking about something that is very important to New Zealand—the whole business of raising our next generation.

But the ACT party opposes this legislation. The key reason is that it is just another example of Labour progressing its socialist agenda. Here we see, in a very clear way, that the Government plans to try to make more and more New Zealanders dependent on the State. In this particular instance, with this bill, it is also taking steps to penalise small business. I will come back to that. If this Government really wanted to help new parents, then the best thing it could do would be to lower taxes to give new parents more disposable income. If parents had more disposable income, they could choose whether mum or dad would stay at home and raise the child or that two incomes were needed to keep their family ticking over.

The reality is that in New Zealand today, in spite of the wonderfully booming economy we appear to have, working families are probably struggling harder than in the past. The benefits of this booming economy are not flowing through to working families. Part of the reason is that with all the regulations and compliance costs that Labour has imposed out there, a lot of the extra productivity generated is not flowing through in increased profitability, and therefore in wage growth, in the way we would hope, and it is not flowing through to give people a rise in their standard of living, which would enable them to choose to stay at home. If the Government really wanted to help young families get ahead, why does it not lower taxes? For goodness’ sake, we have a $6 billion surplus! All working families could benefit from that, if this Government wanted them to. Instead, it chooses to increase the dependency of New Zealand families.

I would like to quote from the Federated Farmers’ submission to the select committee. Federated Farmers, which obviously represents rural New Zealand to a large extent, believes that the best long-term solution lies with empowering individuals and families to plan and prepare for the future themselves. Increasing the disposable income of working families by lowering taxes is a key mechanism available to Government to achieve that objective.

Darren Hughes: 1 percent!

Dr MURIEL NEWMAN: Mr Hughes sits there muttering and mumbling, but it would be very interesting for Opposition members if he, as junior whip and on behalf of his Government, could take a call and explain why his Government, which is overtaxing New Zealand workers to the level of $6 billion to 7 billion a year, will not even consider decreasing the tax burden, when he and every Government member knows that New Zealand is one of the most overtaxed countries in the Western World. I would really enjoy hearing a member of that Government tell families who are planning to have children why this Government will not decrease the tax burden on families so that mothers can choose to stay at home and raise their families instead of having to go out to work. That is the real question.

This bill is simply hiding the fact that this Government does not care about giving families the choices that should rightfully be theirs. Instead, we have here a scheme that essentially provides welfare benefits to families, but it penalises employers in the process. That is the problem. We have already heard in this debate how the bill does not even look after women in the workforce equally. It discriminates against self-employed women, women who are in part-time or job-sharing employment, and women who are in casual employment. Those groups of women make up a substantial part of the workforce, but Labour has simply turned its back on them. We have heard members of the Government say that they will fix it. Why on earth have they not fixed it in this bill? The only reason is that the Government has not had the political will to do so. It does not care about those groups of women, and that is a disgrace. I do not support the bill, but in particular I do not support the Government discriminating against groups of women who for some reason it has decided are not on its side.

A very important reason not to support this bill, though, is the fact that it increases compliance costs on small businesses. I refer to the submission of Business New Zealand, and the explanatory note of the bill when it first came out, which stated: “The proposals do not impose any material increment in compliance cost to business.” That tells me that there must be almost nobody in the Labour Government who has actually hired people, because if any of them had any experience of being an employer, he or she would know that women deciding to take paid parental leave after having their babies, or the 52 weeks’ leave available to them, creates mayhem in a small business. The situation arises where one of an employer’s extremely valuable employees decides to take leave, but the employer does not know whether that leave is for just over 3 months or for a year. The difference between trying to get somebody to fill in for 3 months or to fill in for a year is huge, as any member of the House would testify. Even members who have not employed anybody will know there is a big difference between those two situations.

Darren Hughes: That happens now.

Dr MURIEL NEWMAN: I ask Mr Hughes to imagine today, right now, up and down New Zealand, that businesses cannot hire staff. There are no workers—no skilled workers, no unskilled workers—largely because of the policies of this Government.

This Government has not managed the workforce properly. It panicked on its immigration rules, and the result is that it has halved immigration into New Zealand. It has failed to deal with many of the worker groups that could give this Government solutions to its problems. It has failed to listen. So we have a situation where the small employer is faced with hiring somebody part-time for 3 months—in which case the employer can go to a temp agency, knowing that one has to pay a premium for somebody to come in—or hiring somebody for a year, in which case he or she cannot afford to go the temp agency, because it is too expensive. But the employer is not told until after 14 weeks that the employee will not be coming back.

This bill has put a huge burden of compliance cost on small business. It has made it so that many small businesses today do not want to hire women of childbearing age. That is called “unintended consequence”, which this Government is great at creating. So, in its own way, it ends up discriminating against every woman of childbearing age.

SUE BRADFORD (Green) : Unlike the previous speaker from ACT, the Green Party is pleased to support this bill amending the Government’s paid parental leave scheme established in 2002—and as for creeping socialism, I do not think that this legislation really counts. While we would have liked it to go a lot further, it is great that paid parental leave will be extended from 12 weeks to 14 weeks over the next 2 years, and that paternity and parental leave will now apply to people who have worked for the same employer for between 6 and 12 months.

I do, however, continue to have some slight concern about the position, for example, of medical staff who move between employment with different district health boards and who do not appear to be covered by this bill. I will be consulting others to see whether anything might be done about that, especially given that the bill specifically covers teachers who move between schools. It seems to me to be a very anomalous situation.

The Green Party would also have liked to see a further extension to paid parental leave for at least some self-employed parents, and that was a point of view supported by a number of submitters, both to this bill and to the original bill a few years back. The Department of Labour notes in its evaluation of the scheme in 2003 that one of the most frequently mentioned suggestions to improve this scheme was in the area of extending it to the self-employed.

It was heartening, therefore, to hear advice from the Minister during the select committee process that officials are currently considering the overall framework, design, eligibility criteria, and payment structure that could apply to self-employed people, and is actually committed to progressing that as a matter of priority. The Green Party will be doing its best to hold the Minister and the Government to that commitment, as we know there are many self-employed people in both the rural and urban communities of our country who cannot understand why they have so far been denied access to this scheme.

What I personally find hardest to understand is why it has been possible for some years now to devise systems to apply the accident compensation system to the self-employed—when that situation is incredibly arcane and difficult to implement, and where there is no employer-employee relationship, either—whereas with paid parental leave it appears to have been, for some reason, far more difficult. I trust that in the light of the Minister’s commitments, which are recorded in the commentary on the bill, we will see real progress on that within the next 12 months and that paid parental leave will be extended to at least some self-employed people.

Other issues remain too, of course, including the problem of the minimum weekly hours threshold and the fact that the level of payments still falls well short of the standards set by ILO Convention 183, which states that payments should be set at a level that ensures the woman can maintain herself and her child in proper conditions of health and with a suitable standard of living. Women are still coming up to me, as I am sure they do to many other MPs, asking how on earth they can be expected to support themselves and their child or children at the paid parental leave rate. They have often taken a cut in salary, or are on very low wages anyway, and it is especially difficult to survive when they have no partner to support them. The domestic purposes benefit becomes their only option unless they come from a remarkably well-off background, and at times people are forced back into the workforce before the 12 or 14 weeks are up, which is a real pity.

Another matter that some submitters raised during our consideration of this bill was the question of breastfeeding in the workplace. To me it seems logical that when one is considering paid parental leave, one should also be looking at what happens when a new mother goes back to work after 12, 13, or 14 weeks. If we are serious about supporting the health and well-being of mothers and babies, and serious about work-life balance, we should be doing everything we can to foster a culture—particularly among larger employers—that encourages and enables mothers to breastfeed at work within a secure, safe, and comfortable environment. Although we were advised by the Government that, unfortunately, taking action on that area was not within the scope of the bill, I hope that the Government will be looking at what more it can do in this area in the near future.

In conclusion, I would like to reiterate the Green Party’s support for any measure that extends paid parental leave, and for the Government’s willingness to engage in ongoing evaluation and improvements to the scheme. I look forward to the bill becoming law in the near future and the extension of its provisions to further groups of workers as soon as practicable.

Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (National) : I am pleased to rise and make a contribution on the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill. To start with I will make some comments on some of the things that other members have said.

We support the exact same sentiments of the ACT member who suggested that the Government give tax breaks and return taxes to families. But it is like whistling in the wind, because we are talking about a socialist Government that wants to hoard the money of taxpayers as it does not trust ordinary New Zealanders to make proper choices. That is part of Labour’s philosophy. We can stand over here and wish that the Government would do the right thing—and it is proper to raise the question—but in the end we know that it will not. It does not fit with its philosophy.

I really am baffled by the United Future member’s contribution. United Future is supporting this bill, but most of the member’s contribution tonight was about how we need to value parenthood, value fatherhood, and value motherhood. I do not think there is any member in this House who would not agree with that; I certainly agree with it. But if those are proper principles, if those are underlying philosophies that we should all adhere to, this bill does not do that. I do not understand why United Future would support it.

My colleague Simon Power raised the issue of what the Families Commission is doing about these things.

Paul Adams: They’ve got to report it.

Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU: It will report. Report what? Gosh, that will be great, because what has the Families Commission done so far? I suppose it has done research—who knows? Millions of dollars have gone into it, and, so many months on, those member can only stand and whittle on about our supporting motherhood, etc., and say we should vote for this bill. Voting for this bill is not a vote for motherhood, or parenthood, or fatherhood—it is not. If it was, the bill would be fair. It would not be discriminatory. It would not make some in the community pay for the benefit of others. I suggest to that member that rather than support the bill, he should get on and get the Families Commission into gear—whoever those people are and whatever they are doing. If there are issues around parenthood, motherhood, fatherhood, and apple pie, the commission should get cracking on them. That commission is United Future’s baby. United Future is responsible for that Families Commission. We have not seen any results yet. It might have been that party’s pay-off, but taxpayers are entitled to see why their money was spent in that direction.

I say to Lianne Dalziel that it is all very well her bringing my colleague and associate Katherine Rich into the debate, but really that is no excuse for what is going on in this bill—no excuse whatsoever. If paid parental leave is a proper thing to do, then we should do it for everybody. It is all very well to stand there and read what the Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment (CYF), Ruth Dyson, has said, and to state that she will do this, that, and every other thing—but when? When will that be done?

Lianne Dalziel: Will the member support it?

Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU: Never mind whether we will support it. The ex-Minister is standing there saying that Labour will do this stuff, and we are still waiting. Until it is done, our assertions of discriminatory and unfair legislation absolutely stand to be counted, and are correct. The Federated Farmers submission says it all, I think.

Brian Connell: They are outstanding people.

Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU: They are outstanding people. My colleague Brian Connell should know. A number of my colleagues on this side of the House know that to be true, including David Carter, who was here earlier. Farmers and farmers’ wives are paying for this legislation.

Paul Adams: I thought the taxpayers were paying.

Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU: Well, who are farmers? Who the hang does the member think they are? Are they taxpayers or not? Farmers are huge taxpayers. The rural sector is a big contributor to taxes. But does it get anything out of this? No, it does not. There are basically three glaring anomalies here: self-employed women, whose taxes are paying for this; the rural sector, whose taxes are paying for this—farmers and farming families, the backbone of the country—and those in casual labour, who are paying for this, too. There is a punishment here. The Government likes to laud itself for what it is doing for some in the community, but, in fact, by doing something for some it is punishing others. What sort of legislation is that? The people who are paying for this are entitled to have the support that those others are getting, because they are family-oriented, too. They are looking after their families as much as anybody else is. Why should some in the population be disadvantaged? As I say, this legislation does not have any integrity—none whatsoever. Some in the community are disadvantaged. [Interruption] Who is “she”? I have a name, thank you very much. This bill is typical of Labour: it loves to be generous with other people’s money, including my taxes. []

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): Order, Miss Dalziel, please.

Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU: Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is OK; if it makes the member Lianne Dalziel happy to be shouting across the House, then that is fine. But she has given her contribution, and I am happy to have a little peace and quiet to make mine, because I think my contribution is very valuable.

We on this side of the House oppose this legislation for those very reasons. I just do not see how this Government can justify something that it places a lot of store in—the principle of paid parental leave—yet leave out a large part of the population. There is nothing equitable about that. There is nothing fair about that. It is totally discriminatory. If the Minister has intentions of doing something about the rest of the working population—mothers, fathers—I ask her when she will do it. We are waiting for it. The Government has been dealing with this paid parental leave stuff since it got into power—5 long years. If it is worth doing, then it is worth doing fairly, and it is worth doing it for everybody.

United Future members, the Government’s lapdog helpers, see a lot of faults in this legislation. They have got their Families Commission, which costs all of us money—my taxes as well. I do not know what the Families Commission has done. Those members talk about motherhood, fatherhood, and parenthood; well, the commission should get on and do something about that.

Most of all, though, I think it is absolutely scandalous that this Government hoards taxpayers’ money just so that, coming towards the election next year—maybe at the end of this year, if there is an early election, or sometime next year—it can dish more of it out, and make more New Zealanders dependent on the Government. The Government is buying votes for the election; that is how it gets its voters. It chooses the sections of the community that are more minded to vote for it and gives out money to them. That is why self-employed women are missing out. They are too individual, and they think for themselves—well, no one is going to help them. But their taxes are paying for this provision.

The National Party opposes this legislation. It is unfair and it is discriminatory. If there was any principle in it, the Government would make sure that it went right across the board, and would not pick just those whom it wants to vote for it next year.

Hon CHRIS CARTER (Minister of Conservation) : I rise to support the legislation.

Richard Worth: Where is the substance in that comment?

PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) : I think it is wishful thinking by the honourable member if he thinks he will get some substance out of that Minister. Tonight the Minister opened the debate on this bill with the opening sentence that the bill makes things easier, or better, for working parents. She meant some working parents; she did not mean all working parents. I am sorry to see that United Future has not taken that on board, and I am saddened to see that the Greens talk of doing something for the self-employed, but then say it is OK if it is years away. I say to members that help is on its way. My colleague has put a great deal of effort into introducing a Supplementary Order Paper that will change this bill to incorporate, and to embrace, the self-employed. The amendment will make the bill that much fairer and that much more genuine. The former Minister is smiling. She knows that this is a discriminatory bill.

Lianne Dalziel: It all applies to the self-employed.

PETER BROWN: It is all very well reading out these nice woolly, fluffy comments that the Minister has made, but the member knows that it is not fair. The Government would rather give extra weeks’ paid parental leave to those who get it already, than address the problem of the self-employed. The Government would rather give to people who have been in employment for less than a year, than give to somebody who has been self-employed for many years. Is that fair?

It is not fair in New Zealand First’s view. The Government would rather give paid parental leave to high-earning people than to self-employed people. Is that fair? It is not fair in New Zealand First’s book. It is a long way from fair. I say to the member from United Future sitting opposite that I listened to him intently. He supports the bill. He recognises that it does nothing for the self-employed but he will not help the situation. He is just going to put his hand up. Is this another case of another bite of the elephant? For goodness’ sake, how many bites does he want of the elephant?

Paul Adams: I’m pretty hungry.

PETER BROWN: I say to the honourable member that there is a little old saying that New Zealand First tries to live to—“Do it once, do it right.” [Interruption] I am sure that members do not disagree with me on that.

Lianne Dalziel: Can we fix it?

PETER BROWN: We can fix it. My colleague has the Supplementary Order Paper. Can we fix it? Yes, we can, and we are going to. We are going to appeal to Mr Adams’ conscience. I know we have got him, as he is wriggling in his seat. He is feeling very, very uncomfortable. I know that Sue Bradford is very genuine when she says she wants to help the self-employed, but she says that it is 12 months away. I say to Sue Bradford that help is much closer than that. We can fix this in 12 days. We can get the Supplementary Order Paper through that my colleague has produced.

Lianne Dalziel: Is it in your name?

PETER BROWN: It is in the name of my colleague Bill Gudgeon. He was on the select committee, he listened to all the submissions, and he sat down and diligently came up with a Supplementary Order Paper that tidies up the whole thing.

Lianne Dalziel: Is it within the scope of the bill?

PETER BROWN: Of course it is within the scope of the bill. It is in the Minister’s wish list. We are turning this bill into a genuine, fair article. The member cannot be serious when she asks whether it is within the scope of the bill. The second bullet point in the commentary, under the suggestions to improve the scheme, is the aim to do that, and my colleague has fixed it. I say to members opposite that if they vote against Mr Gudgeon’s Supplementary Order Paper they are doing a disservice to self-employed women in particular. When did the first bill go through? Was it in 1999?

Lianne Dalziel: 2002.

PETER BROWN: In 2002, before the last election?

Lianne Dalziel: Just before, when National had 39 MPs.

PETER BROWN: That is right, I remember the member raising that point. National should take note of that. It will shrink another 50 percent if it does not. We tripled in number. I say to the honourable members opposite that this is the second attempt to get this sort of legislation correct and we believe that the self-employed have to be included in it.

Another concern we have—and I do not see that this bill has addressed it—is that young women take paid parental leave and then do not return to the firm that they have taken the parental leave from. I know they are paid by the taxpayer, but they leave the firm and they do not come back.

Brian Connell: What’s your point?

PETER BROWN: The point is that there should be a commitment to come back to the firm, or at least to tell the firm before they take off that they are not coming back. That is only reasonable and fair, is it not? Is that not what John Tamihere told Labour today—that he has gone for a few weeks but he intends coming back?

Simon Power: He might not have a choice.

PETER BROWN: No, he might not have a choice, but it is only reasonable that people who take paid parental leave indicate to the firm, the company, or whomever, whether they are coming back to the firm. The firm could be left in a terrible situation. A young woman may go off for 12 weeks—it is going to increase to 14 weeks—and then disappear without trace. That is not acceptable. It is not fair to the businesses of New Zealand and we will be putting up a Supplementary Order Paper on it. I say seriously to the House that we will not necessarily support this bill unless it addresses the full problems. We will determine that at caucus. At the moment we want the bill to proceed, but we want it to do so on the basis that it addresses the problems in relation to the self-employed. I am being deadly serious. I believe that Mr Gudgeon’s Supplementary Order Paper addresses that problem comprehensively. It adds amendments to clauses 8, 9, 11, and 12 to cover the circumstances of the self-employed.

• Debate interrupted.