Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister of State Services) : I move, That the State Sector Amendment Bill be now read a third time. The purpose of the bill is to make generic provision for matters resulting from the machinery of Government reorganisations. It enables the Crown to organise itself for administrative purposes without unduly consuming House time. The most important element of the bill is to limit the cost to the taxpayer of compensation for technical redundancy. Where functions transfer from one department to another and an employee’s position ceases to exist, the employee is redundant and entitled to redundancy compensation, even if a substantially similar position is available in the transferee department. In such a situation, the employee is technically redundant.

Hon Richard Prebble: Point of order—

Mr SPEAKER: I think the member is about to raise a point of order on something I was just about to comment on myself. I could hardly hear the Minister. There are meetings going on now. Could members please leave quietly, and could the Minister please speak into the microphone.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well, I wonder—

Mr SPEAKER: I do not want any comment. I just want the Minister to continue. He is using up his time.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Under the bill, where an employee is offered a substantially similar position in the transferee department on no less favourable terms and conditions of employment, no redundancy compensation will be payable. The bill covers similar situations where functions of a Crown entity are transferred to a department, affecting an employee’s position. These provisions will only apply following the making of Orders in Council. Specific legislation will still be required to disestablish a department that is established by legislation. The bill applies to the generic provisions of the transfer of functions from the Department of Social Welfare to the Department of Work and Income, and changes the name of that department to the Ministry of Social Development. It also applies to the merger of the Department for Courts into the Ministry of Justice.

Hon ROGER SOWRY (Deputy Leader—NZ National) : I do not think I have ever seen a Minister so embarrassed about a bill than the Minister we have just heard from. He managed to get up and mumble his way through his departmental notes, making a few mumbling comments about it and sitting down as quickly as possible. That is because he is embarrassed to be here.

This will not the first time this week, we are led to believe, that this Government will be carrying out retrospective legislation. The bill we are passing today is deemed under the commencement clause to have come into effect on 1 October 2001. This Minister has been so hopeless in trying to shepherd this bill through that he actually gave up on it. He wheeled it in with all the bluster and might he could muster at the time, and decided that this was the “Get Work and Income New Zealand Bill”—merge Work and Income New Zealand with the Department of Social Welfare and create a new superministry, the Ministry of Social Development. Then his plans got derailed. We had a court case and a whole lot of other issues that arose around the dismissal of Christine Rankin and the Minister’s blameless life of excellence. We went from there into another round of restructuring, involving the Department for Courts and the Ministry of Justice.

This bill that we are passing on 29 July 2003 is deemed to have been passed on 1 October 2001, so the bill will be voted for and passed by a whole lot of United Future members of Parliament who are voting for legislation that is deemed to have come into force before they were even in Parliament. In fact, the leader of United Future was voting on this side of the House at that stage. Now, all of a sudden, he has changed his mind. The only principle that party has is to support this Government, and it has now decided that all the things it said about this bill in 2001 are wrong and should be forgotten. Now it is going to vote, as it always does, with the Government and pass the bill into law.

This is not good legislation. It gives the Government the power to reorganise Government departments and not have to come back into the House to seek a mandate to do so. This is the sort of bill that can allow Ministers to get rid of their ministries, such as the Ministry of Youth Affairs, which we know is one that is particularly targeted. The Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs and the Ministry of Consumer Affairs are probably others. We know that the Government is quite keen to get rid of those ministries, and now it will be able to do that without any need to come back to Parliament to have mergers and new arrangements with the staff affected scrutinised. This legislation gives the Government and the Minister of State Services the power to say to a chief executive: “If you and your department are going to continue to inhibit this Government’s advice, then watch out. We can now get you because we have legislation that will enable us to do that.”

I will give members an example. We all know that this Government does not like public servants who give free and frank advice. I saw a piece of advice that went through the Ministry of Education recently. Typed in the space where the conclusion should be were the words: “Minister to write.” There is nothing about the department being fearless in recommending things to that Minister of Education. No, he writes his own conclusions in his departmental Cabinet papers. It should not surprise anyone that that is the same Minister, Mr Mallard, who comes into this House with this legislation so that he can wander into a troublesome department—one of the smaller ones—that might well be causing him a bit of grief by holding out for its own group in society and saying things that the Government does not like, and tell it that if it does not buckle down, there is now legislation enabling the Government to easily subsume it into a larger department without having to go to Parliament.

I think that is outrageous. If this side of the House had done that, the Labour Party and the trade union movement would have been up in arms about the rights of Public Service Association members, and the rights of workers in the departments, to negotiate new contracts and to make sure that their terms and conditions were being carried over under the same rules. All that is gone. There is no concern at all for Public Service Association members. They do not get consulted anymore. In fact, the bill we are passing today came into Parliament as a 13-page bill and sat here for 2½ years. Then last week we saw the Minister drop a 13-page block of amendments into the House. That tells us we have a Government that is not interested in process, and is quite happy to come in here and pass legislation in 2003 that is deemed to have come into force in 2001.

I want to spend a few moments talking about retrospective legislation. One of the most impassioned speeches I have heard in my time in this House about retrospective legislation came from the current leader of United Future, Peter Dunne. I can remember him railing long and hard against Governments passing retrospective legislation. I can remember the Greens doing exactly the same. The Greens have long stood out in this House and said that they will not support retrospective legislation, but on this bill they seem to have forgotten that. The Greens have long said in this House that they stand up for the rights of the union members, yet on this bill they have forgotten about that. They do not care at all about the workers in those departments that are being merged.

I will be watching very closely to see how the Greens, in particular, vote on this legislation. I hope they will continue to oppose this bill, because it is particularly bad legislation. It is the sort of legislation that a Government wheels in when it wants a big stick to hold over the head of a few troublesome public servants. They might be the kind of public servant who would write in a memo that they were hung out to dry because everybody from the Minister down agreed to lie, and then he or she was the only one singing that tune. One can imagine a public servantwho had been a bit troublesome—and we know that with regard to the Immigration Service the Minister has been caught out a couple of times, and once blamed her officials. She is now caught out by something that has still has a little way to go over the next few weeks, where she has obviously been party to something that is now starting to unravel. We can imagine that that department and chief executive will suddenly find this piece of legislation hanging over his or her head, and the Immigration Service might find itself a new home—a nice convenient way for a Government to tame and cower the public service. That is why we oppose this piece of legislation.

MURRAY SMITH (United Future) : There is some irony here with the last speaker, Mr Sowry—because I read his speech of 31 July 2001 to the House on the first reading of this bill. It was very interesting. He said that the bill was half sensible and half not. The bit he thought was not sensible was that it was going to be rushed through Parliament. But generally he concentrated his speech on wondering why the Greens were supporting the bill and why the bill was going to be rushed through Parliament, rather than on anything he saw, at that time, as not being sensible. Suddenly he has changed his tune. I really wonder why that is. I was going to compliment Mr Sowry, however, because it seems to me that he was rather prophetic when he gave his speech. Mr Tisch was also prophetic when he gave his speech.

Way back then, when Mr Sowry gave his speech, he said: “It is not as though I can say that the track record of the Government is that it will get this bill reported back on 4 September and passed on 5 September.”, when the Government intended to do that. “The track record is that we will report it back on 4 September, and around maybe 18 December we will deal with it. After the Government has sewn things up and has denied a whole lot of people the opportunity to speak, it will not rush this bill through the House.”

I must say that Mr Sowry certainly did predict that. But his date of December in which to deal with the bill was a little bit short. Here we have a bill that was introduced on 31 July 2001 and sent off to the Government Administration Committee to report back on 4 September of that year. Suddenly, 2 years later, it is only just coming back to the House.

Mr Tisch also criticised the legislation, and he was prophetic too. He said: “Everything it does is a rush. It is a rush to get things through. Then, at the end of the day, after the bill is reported back, it will take a long time before it is enacted. That is the record of this Government, and certainly this bill is on a par with that.” So I must agree with those speakers about the length of time that the bill has taken. So what is the justification for the length of time? Firstly, September 11 happened, and maybe that distracted the House. That might have distracted it for a few months, but it is hard to believe that that kept it distracted for 2 years. Secondly, I think that what really happened was that once the bill was introduced, the Government’s intention to legislate was signalled, and therefore—when the Department of Work and Income’s name was changed to the Ministry of Social Development, and the Department of Social Welfare was abolished and its functions transferred to the Ministry of Social Development—the redundancy claims dried up. Therefore there was no immediate urgency for the bill.

However, I find a great deal of contradiction in Mr Sowry’s claiming, firstly, that United Future is now passing legislation that it was not even here for in 2001, which is true; and then claiming that we have changed our position from where we stood in 2001, when we were not here. I find it rather difficult to see how he can take both sides of that. However, suddenly 2 years later, we find, probably through the motivation of the merger of the Department for Courts and Ministry of Justice, that we have the bill now before us. But it is hard to accept that the Government could not have tidied up its mess earlier, and certainly it should have done so prior to the general election, notwithstanding the predictions that it was going to regain the Treasury benches.

There are two issues in this bill that need to be considered and that United Future considered in deciding whether to support it. Firstly, the bill is altering legislation by regulation, and, secondly, there is the provision about redundancy payments, and the denial of redundancy payments to employees. In terms of the altering of legislation by regulation, United Future is, of course, the “common-sense” party, and we took a common-sense view about this situation. It is the executive’s prerogative to organise its affairs as it sees fit, including changing names of departments or merging departments, and, once it has done so, those changes need to be reflected in schedules—such as that in the State Sector Act—and that should be done in a timely fashion. It should not take the executive 2 years to make those fairly technical changes.

It is absurd, and, quite frankly, a waste of Parliament’s time, that the executive should have to go through the entire primary legislative process, merely to reflect a name change in the schedule of an Act. We take the common-sense approach that—notwithstanding this is a change of legislation by regulation, rather than going through the House—that such minor changes as simply changing the name of an organisation should not take up Parliament’s time when the bill is only giving effect to something that the executive is entitled to do as of right.

In terms of the redundancy issues, I am conscious that the issues of “similar job descriptions” and “general locality” do not cover everything that employees may look for when they are looking for a change of job position. They look at the office environment—the people they would work with in specific surroundings. They look at the broader environment—the general policy work, the goals of the organisation, and the culture of the organisation.

I shall quote from the Public Service Association’s submission to the Government Administration Committee, which, I think, accurately reflects this: “One aspect of reorganisation that is a significant consideration from an employee’s perspective, but is seldom catered for in management-of-change provisions, is the change in culture. There have been times when the change in culture has been so great that it is difficult to reconcile the difference with the standard definition of ‘same or similar’ position. On paper the job descriptions may look very similar, and the status of the employee within the new organisation may be at the same level as it was in the former organisation. However, dramatic change in culture may not be evidenced in the job descriptions but may be evidenced in what has driven the reorganisation and the direction of the new department.”

Should employees then be required, under penalty of not getting any redundancy, to change from one culture of organisation to another, albeit on paper it is simply a name change? Is it fair to require a person to change his or her job or be made redundant without compensation? A number of considerations have led me and led United Future to the position that it is reasonable that these changes be made. Firstly, we know that departments can move offices, change staff, change department focus, change policy, without the consent of employees. So those factors are something that could happen in any event, and are the normal right of an employer, including the Government, to do.

Secondly, redundancy payments have become rare these days. They are not things that are commonly found, out in the business world; and where there is a reassignment, simply in terms of one department to another, without a real job change, then ethically I do not believe that it is appropriate for redundancy to also be paid, as a bit of a windfall to employees, which they do not really deserve.

Thirdly, there is a balancing of the interests of the public and the individual. It is in the public interest not to lose the valuable experience and abilities of key employees through what, in the light of the comments I have made, amounts to a technical redundancy. There is a real danger that, if a redundancy option were given, good employees who are valuable and essential to the organisation might be lost; and also, in terms of the public interest, it would not be in the public interest that all that happened in practice was that there were significant redundancy payments and then the same people were re-employed, by contract or otherwise, to fill the jobs in the new department. So in the public interest I believe that it is appropriate in these instances that there is no redundancy payment.

I commend the Public Service Association for its attitude to this bill. It is there to protect Government employees, but it responsibly accepted this position and endorsed it. It stated in its submission: “The PSA has a history of supporting job retention over redundancy. We do not encourage employees to seek redundancy payments when there is the opportunity to continue employment with substantially the same terms and conditions. The PSA recognises that in reconstituting the new public service there is likely to be amalgamation of existing departments with fewer and larger departments. We understand that the motivation of this change, unlike the restructuring of the 80s and 90s, is to reduce the fragmentation of the public service rather than reduce jobs or prepare services for sale.” I commend the Public Service Association for its attitude and support, and it was that support that at the end of the day persuaded me and persuaded United Future that it was appropriate to support this bill and take the common-sense approach that seemed to be so clearly shown.

Hon RICHARD PREBBLE (Leader—ACT NZ) : This State Sector Amendment Bill originally had one purpose, which was to enable the reorganisation of the Department of Work and Income and the Ministry of Social Policy, and the abolition of the Department of Social Welfare and the transfer of its functions to the Ministry of Social Development—in short a sort of “Christine Rankin Restructuring Bill”. That was its original purpose but since then, and very suddenly last week, the bill has taken on a total new purpose—that is, to abolish the Department for Courts. That is quite a large department with 1,890 staff. That change was added to the bill last Wednesday, after it had been through the Government Administration Committee, so it did not allow for the public any right to discuss it.

I want to make this comment to the Government, and to Mr Smith, from the United Future party, who has just sat down: they owe a duty to this House to tell us why a department of State, the Department for Courts, should be abolished.

Murray Smith: This bill doesn’t abolish it.

Hon RICHARD PREBBLE: Well, that is interesting. It must be very easy to get them to support the Government when they actually do not even realise they are voting for a bill to abolish the Department for Courts. [Interruption] Well, it says so—that is what the bill says. An interesting thing, I say to Mr Smith, concerns the Committee stage of this bill. I say to the fourth estate that they have a duty to report this House, and how the Government is treating Parliament, the judiciary, the legal profession, and the public. We are being treated with contempt. I say quite sincerely that I do not know why the Government is promoting this measure, because no Minister has seen fit to get up and explain.

The Minister said: “Oh, I put out a press statement.” I found it, thanks to the help of the library. Yes, on 16 May he put out a press statement, and this is what he said: “The merger between the policy and operations functions of the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Courts will strengthen the overall justice sector”. That is interesting. How? I read the rest of the press statement, and there is no way of telling. The United Future members told us they all got a briefing, so I thought they were going to come and tell us. But they have not.

I have made some further inquiries, and I discovered—and I wonder whether Mr Smith can tell us whether he knows this—that Treasury does not agree. This is what Treasury said to the Government about it: “There is limited evidence that sector performance is impaired by the way it has been structured.” It then went on to say: “The five indicators for structural change do not present a strong case for merger. Our view is the proposed merger would be more likely to worsen performance.” That was said by Treasury—but the Government has not told us why it thinks it would be strengthened. I would like to know whether the judges were consulted. Are the judges unhappy with the Department for Courts?

Stephen Franks: Some of them are.

Hon RICHARD PREBBLE: Some of them are—righto. Now I have the ridiculous position that one of my own members of Parliament thinks he can answer for the Government, and I want to know from Government members whether they think that.

Darren Hughes: It’s only a junior member.

Hon RICHARD PREBBLE: What?

Darren Hughes: It’s only a junior member saying that.

Hon RICHARD PREBBLE: Well, that is all right, but I am asking the Government whether it thinks that. In 1995 there was a review of the Ministry of Justice, which concluded that the ministry was not doing its job properly because it was confused between operational matters, like looking after the courts and the prisons, and providing policy advice. That was the decision in 1995. I am asking the Minister what has happened to change that. Why are we not entitled to know? If the Government does know some reasons, why the secrecy? Why can it not be shared? I would like to know this from United Future members: why does the United Future party think that a department of 1,800 staff should be abolished by a press statement, then a Supplementary Order Paper, with no opportunity for any member of the public to make a submission? [Interruption] The member has just said it is the executive’s prerogative. Why bother, I say to Mr Smith, having Parliament? He said it is the executive’s—well, actually, it is not, because it is actually in a statute, and that, I say to Mr Smith, is legislation, and that is our prerogative—in this Parliament. If we did not agree as a Parliament to this vote, the Department for Courts could not be abolished. It is not the executive’s prerogative to abolish statutorily set-up departments.

I would like to know from United Future members why they just agreed to this. They actually campaigned saying they wanted to improve the accountability of the Government. They said they wanted to lift the standard of Parliament—yet they want to know why they are regarded as a rubber stamp. They have agreed with a press statement of 18 May, not setting out any reasons, then with a Supplementary Order Paper that came in on Wednesday of last week. Now, on Tuesday, the department is abolished, with no consultation at all. I say that that is a parliamentary outrage. I believe that the Labour Government is abusing Parliament. When Labour wants to know why the public are concerned on a serious constitutional issue like that of the Privy Council, things like the foreshore, and things the Government is doing in other negotiations, it is because the Government is treating this Parliament and other constitutionally important institutions with contempt. Indeed, this bill is contemptible in that it is retrospective—right back to 2001. Even the United Future party did not think that that was a very good idea, yet it is going to vote for the measure. I say to the House that we—

Murray Smith: I wasn’t here in 2001.

Hon RICHARD PREBBLE: That is true; the member was not here in 2001. But he is here now and he is now going to vote for a measure that is retrospective. He is now going to vote for the abolition of the Department for Courts without in any way knowing whether that is a good measure. I have to say to the House that I do not know whether it is a good measure, because the Government has not put forward any arguments. But I can see some counterarguments. If it has not been working well when it was administered by the Department of Justice prior to 1995, it seems to me extremely unlikely that it is going to work when it goes back to the department in 2003. It also seems to me that when the Ministry of Justice is going to have 1,800employees in the Department for Courts and only 180 from the old Department of Justice, that this is such a large addition that, as Treasury rightly observes, this could easily result in top management getting diverted. In fact, they say the Ministry of Justice could become overly focused on court operations, and the other departments will not perceive the combined Ministry of Justice and courts department as neutral, and that the restructuring process could distract management focus from current initiatives. Those are not my words; they are Treasury’s.

We have the right to have the Minister actually speak to this part of the bill. If we look at his third reading speech we see that there was not a word about the Department for Courts. There was nothing during the Committee stage. Government Ministers and members just sat in their seats when we asked these questions. They would not answer. United Future members just called out from their seats: “We know the answer but we won’t tell you—there, there, there!”. I just say to them that they are not performing correctly as parliamentarians. This bill is a piece of contempt to Parliament. The Government owes it to Parliament, the judiciary, the legal profession, and the public to get up and give us an explanation of why the Department for Courts is being abolished. If they will not, then we as a Parliament should vote against the bill.

DARREN HUGHES (NZ Labour—Otaki) : I rise in support of the third reading of the State Sector Amendment Bill, the reasons for which were outlined by the Minister of State Services when he began the third reading debate and went through the bill’s implications. Currently, when there are mergers of Government departments it is necessary to come back to Parliament for a legislation change, which does not seem so appropriate when it is a case of two existing Government agencies being brought together and when the opportunity for Parliament to question that is through parliamentary questions to Ministers in the estimates debate. It does seem that it takes a long time to bring in special legislation in that regard, so I support the bill, and I look forward to its being passed.

PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) : I have to say to the member who just resumed his seat that he read that speech exceedingly well. Perhaps after a little more rehearsal he will have it off pat. Then perhaps he will understand exactly what he is talking about.

Hon Annette King: Keep practising those walk-outs.

PETER BROWN: I know nothing about walk-outs. The way this bill has been handled in this House is absolutely disgraceful. We have here a 12-page bill, and a 12-page Supplementary Order Paper that appeared in this House last Wednesday and has not been referred to a select committee, but changes things dramatically in terms of the Department for Courts. The member over there, Mr Smith, said he was not aware that the Supplementary Order Paper abolished the Department for Courts. I shall read clause 3(b)(iii): “the abolition of the Department for Courts and the transfer of its functions to the Ministry of Justice.” Members of United Future voted for that, for no select committee, and clearly, they did not even understand what they were told at their briefing. They call themselves the common-sense party—the party that is dedicated to the interests of New Zealand and New Zealanders. That is the biggest load of waffle that I have heard for some time.

Whilst the bill was going through the Committee stage I took special note of who made a contribution and to what extent, particularly from the Government. There was only one speech from the Government, and that was from the Minister on the title.

Stephen Franks: He then denied what he said, in the next interjections.

PETER BROWN: I think he did. I think the member is correct. There was nothing at all from the Government members, from the Labour members. There was not one single contribution during the whole debate when the bill went through the Committee stage. There was nothing at all from the Greens. There was not one single contribution from the Greens. The abolition of the Department for Courts is quite radical stuff, and the Greens sit there in silence. There was not one speech from United Future in the Committee stage.

Stephen Franks: They know everything. They’ve been briefed.

PETER BROWN: I know. They have been briefed. They did not even know. They interjected on the Hon Richard Prebble and denied that the Department for Courts was to be abolished. They did not even know that. They did not know that the Department for Courts is an employer of nearly 2,000 people. That member can sit there and smirk and say that they voted for it, that they do not care that the public has no say, that New Zealanders have no say; they voted for it, because they are the common-sense party. That is what they are saying to New Zealanders.

Stephen Franks: It’s called prerogative.

PETER BROWN: That is the polite term for what it is. I can think of another term. It is disgraceful. One thing that makes me hot under the collar in this House, and it has happened on too many occasions now, is that bills go through with fairly significant Supplementary Order Papers not being referred to a select committee. This House stands for democracy and we should all stand for that. We should all be proud of the democratic process we have here. The public expects it. Indeed, the public demands it. We have no right to come to this House and take them for granted. That is absolutely treating the public and the people of this country in contempt. If that is the best that United Future members can do, it is absolutely not good enough by a long way.

When the bill first progressed, there was no United Future. It did not have a “Future”, and the United Future member, without the “Future”, was voting with the National Party. When United Future got a “Future”, it went backwards and became autocratic. It knows better than everybody else. United Future is displaying that it knows better than anyone else. Now it votes exactly the opposite to what it did when it did not have a “Future”. That is the quickest way I can think of to be written into the history books and to become “United Past”.

New Zealand First recognises that there is some merit in what the Government wants to do in this bill. But the procedure to push this bill through with no democratic process whatsoever is absolutely disgraceful. We will not be supporting this bill—not at all. I regret that a new political party can come into this House and display the arrogance that it knows it all and is not prepared to refer a significant bill like this, and a significant Supplementary Order Paper, to a select committee. United Future should be standing up for New Zealanders and ensuring that their democratic rights are looked after. New Zealand First opposes this bill.

NANAIA MAHUTA (NZ Labour—Tainui) : I rise to make a brief contribution to the third reading of the State Sector Amendment Bill. I just want to highlight that one of the important elements of the bill is to limit costs to the taxpayer of compensation for technical redundancies. This is to ensure that taxpayers’ money is used more efficiently. That part of the bill finds that where employees are offered a substantially similar position at the transfer of the department, on no less favourable terms and conditions of employment, no redundancy compensation will be paid. If that is not common sense, I do not know what is. I support this bill.

SUE BRADFORD (Green) : The Green Party will be supporting the third reading of the State Sector Amendment Bill today. We are glad to see it finally reach this point, after lingering on the Order Paper since some time around the middle of 2001. Some of the bill seems somewhat redundant now, given that the restructuring of the former Work and Income New Zealand happened ages ago, but at least that merger will be retrospectively tidied up as of today.

Overall, the Green Party believes that there is nothing radical or distasteful about this bill. It is simply a common-sense step towards dealing in a sane way with what happens when Government departments are abolished, restructured, amalgamated, or otherwise subject to one of the many forms of organisational change so popular in both the private and public sectors these days. It is sensible that from now on, when new Governments come in, they will be able to change the name and focus of departments without having to bring in new legislation each time this happens. However, this does not change the fact that when a department is set up by statute, legislative change will still be required to amend or establish its purpose, and that is how it should be.

The core of the bill comprises amendments to the State Sector Act that put into place general rules with regard to the technical redundancies that occur when Government departments merge or reorganise. When employees are affected by restructuring, they will now have legislative protections, including the right to substantially the same position and substantially the same geographical location, and the right to be employed on terms and conditions that are no less favourable than those that they previously enjoyed, and on terms that treat the new position as continuous in relation to sick and holiday leave and other entitlements.

The Green Party would have liked to see similar provisions legislated for in clause 66 of the original Employment Relations Bill in 2000, as we believe that all workers should have protection such as these when their job is restructured or sold out from under them. However, as it turned out, clause 66, commonly known as “transfer of undertakings”, was not to be. We are now looking forward to seeing what the Government comes up with shortly in its proposed legislation to reform and improve the Employment Relations Act. We hope that nothing in the State Sector Amendment Bill will limit the Employment Relations Act review and amendment process, and we will certainly be seeking consequential amendments if the new legislation once again ignores transfer of undertakings, or comes up with clauses offering less protection than those contained in the bill before us today. Above all, what is needed is generic legislation that covers and protects all workers, whether or not they are in the State sector. The Green Party will be doing everything we can over the coming months to make sure the Labour Government does not let workers down on that issue the second time round.

A second aspect of this bill deals with two specific mergers of Government departments. One of those is the abolition of the Department for Courts and the transfer of its functions to the Ministry of Justice. This merger undoes the separation of courts from the justice ministry that was misguidedly brought in by National in 1995 as part of its peculiar and costly drive to separate policy from operations throughout the State sector. The Green Party welcomes the reuniting of the administration of courts and tribunals with the Ministry of Justice. It makes sense to us that unnecessary duplication of administration and other infrastructure functions is discontinued. The new ministry, with around 2,000 staff, will be a department of a rational size, rather than the Ministry of Justice having just 180 staff and being split off on its own. We also appreciate the fact that the passing of this bill means that, as we understand it, all staff involved will be offered their existing jobs or similar jobs at the same terms and conditions, and that the Public Service Association will be involved in the merger process.

The bringing together of the justice and courts departments is a useful consequence of the review of the centre, and we welcome this particular restructuring, which is geared to reducing fragmentation, improving the two-way interface between policy and practice, especially in relation to public law, and creating a single, rather than dispersed, point of contact between the executive and the judiciary.

The second reorganisation that this bill specifically covers is that of the changes to the Department of Social Welfare and Work and Income New Zealand, commonly known as WINZ, which the Labour Government fortunately instituted as soon as it practicably could after the 1999 election. The era of Christine Rankin and WINZ will surely go down in history as one of the most unfortunate in the entire ramshackle annals of New Zealand’s social security system. This late 1990s flowering of the National Party’s approach to beneficiaries was characterised by a Government department focused on style rather than substance, and by an underpinning “blame the victim” mentality that reached its epitome with the dob-in-a-beneficiary campaign on prime-time television, at the same time as departmental staff, senior-level staff, were flown by private jet to a Wairakei resort for a so-called training weekend, which was actually just a social occasion, as far as I could tell.

During that period, both the people served by WINZ and groups served by the department, such as those served by the Community Employment Group, suffered hugely. The Hunn report, carried out shortly after Labour had regained the Government benches, was a fairly accurate and revealing reflection of what had gone wrong in those years. The Green Party, at the time, welcomed the Government’s decision to change WINZ’s name in the wake of that report, because the branding of “WINZ” had become totally contaminated by the excesses of that particular era. We also welcomed the bringing together of social policy, income support, and employment functions into one department, and the quite different and far more positive approach to leadership taken by both the Minister and the new chief executive officer, Peter Hughes. While the Ministry of Social Development, which is retrospectively mandated by this legislation, is not without ongoing and substantial problems, the Green Party unhesitatingly supports the changes made in this bill. I just hope I live to see the day when people will stop using the now very out-of-date term “WINZ” in describing the department, because it carries with it a legacy of contempt for beneficiaries and for staff that I hope we will never see again.

DAVID BENSON-POPE (NZ Labour—Dunedin South) : I am pleased to rise in support of the third reading of the State Sector Amendment Bill, and I know that the New Zealand community will overwhelmingly welcome the opportunity it presents for more efficient reorganisation of the public service.

Sandra Goudie: How do you know?

Peter Brown: Tell us why you’re doing it.

DAVID BENSON-POPE: Indeed, I say to those members interjecting from the Opposition benches that they could well follow the same path, with some more efficient reorganisation within their own National Party structure. Of course, they would need to maintain fairness towards employees, which is a problem they have.

The New Zealand community will also be pleased at the savings in public money through the reduction of the unnecessary technical redundancy provision. Nothing has made more of a nonsense of our redundancy laws than those people who pick up repeated redundancies when there has been a technical shift only. For that reason alone, I am please to commend this bill to the House.

LINDSAY TISCH (NZ National—Piako) : It has been interesting over the last couple of sitting days to debate a completely new State Sector Amendment Bill, because that is what we have. A Supplementary Order Paper was lodged at the eleventh hour—when we started the Committee stage—the other night that was longer than the original bill. This Government brings this sort of legislation in at the last minute, there is no opportunity for debate or for referral to a select committee, so the close scrutiny that is what this House is about does not happen. As I have said in previous debates, and as I reiterate now, that is an absolute abuse of the parliamentary process. This sort of legislation can be brought in, and those who are affected by it and those who know something about the area do not have an opportunity to have a say.

National is opposing this bill. We are opposing it because, first, we do not agree with the concept of departments being able to be merged, amalgamated, or abolished by way of an executive decision by Order in Council. That is what this bill does. This Government, by way of regulation, will be able to say that it does not like a particular department or that it thinks particular departments should merge. The Government will not bring that to the House for us to say what we think about it, to hear some submissions on it, and to look at the pros and cons, the advantages and disadvantages. That will not happen. What will happen is, by Order in Council, this executive will politicise the process, and will be able to merge a couple of departments if it wants. If one of those departments has a chief executive that it does not like, this is one way that it can get rid of that person. Members will be aware, as it has been discussed over time, of the Christine Rankin affair. This bill is a consequence of that.

If this piece of legislation is so important, why has it been so long since its first reading, in July 2001? At that stage there were only 4 weeks for the select committee to have a look at it, and of those 4 weeks there were only 9 days in which submissions could be heard. In addition, one of those weeks was an adjournment week. I was on the select committee that looked at it, and at the time we said— I said—that it was very hasty legislation. It is very important legislation, and the Government gave us only 4 weeks and cut down the submission time. We reported it back in September 2001, and what has happened since then? Twenty-two months later we are having the Committee stage and the third reading, and, as I mentioned, the Committee stage dealt with a completely new bill by way of a 13-page Supplementary Order Paper. We had never seen it before. No one had had an opportunity to have any debate on it or input into it. There was no transparency or accountability. We are now debating the third reading. National does not like that sort of process. We believe that if legislation is important, it needs to have a fair hearing. People who will be affected by it need to have a say.

It was also interesting that, during the Committee stage, not one Government member was prepared to stand up to defend or support the legislation, or to add value to the debate in terms of what the bill was about and, more particularly, what the Supplementary Order Paper was about. Even United Future party members, who support the bill, did not bother to take a call. I was interested in the comments from Murray Smith, who said he supported some of the points made by National, but when it comes to the crux, to voting on something like this, those members vote with the Government. I remind the United Future party that way back in September—

Peter Brown: When was that?

LINDSAY TISCH: Back in September 2001, the leader of that party voted against the bill. National held the proxy for him at that time, and I have here the record of his vote.

This bill is now retrospective. Clause 2, “Commencement”, now states that sections 6 to 11(1), 12 to 15, and schedule 1 will be deemed to have come into force on 1 October 2001. This is retrospective legislation. These things have already happened, and what we are doing here today, in the debate on the third reading, is supporting that. I would have thought that a party that is supporting the Government in order to allow this legislation to be passed would be able to stand up during the Committee stage and advance its position by looking very closely at whether it supported the legislation, and say what the advantages or disadvantages were. Well, it did not surprise me that United Future members did not stand up to support it. They were not even around way back in 2001 when their leader voted against this legislation, but they have not given us the courtesy of giving us their experience and knowledge of the bill. They probably have not read it—that is why. They probably do not know what it really means, and, therefore, they have not come forward to say what it really means and how it is to be implemented.

I want to recap on what the bill does, because we have major concerns about it. In essence, it allows the Crown to reorganise, abolish, or merge Government departments, to do whatever it wants, by this very important power that the executive of this minority Government has—by Order in Council. The Government does not have to bring that proposal back to Parliament, ask us what we think about it, and have a debate on it to see whether it is in the best interests of the country. No, that will not happen. It will be done by Order in Council, by the executive. Members should remember that this is a minority Government. That is the power that it will now be exercising, and we—

Darren Hughes: This is a super-minority Opposition.

LINDSAY TISCH: “It’s a super-power.”, he says; he is right as it is super-abuse of the system. In my view, the parliamentary process is being abused. It is being abused in two cases. First, we had a Supplementary Order Paper that no one knew about, and we had to debate it. Second, the Government is taking all the power and will be making these important decisions by Order in Council. We are not happy with that. We are voting against it, and I have said that before. Not only are we concerned but organisations like the Law Society are concerned. The society said that there was a need for cautious assessment of the proposed provisions. That is given emphasis here because one of the parties to the contracts to be overridden by statute is the Crown. The Crown not only is promoting this legislation but also will be the contractual beneficiary of it. In this legislation the Crown is determining its own destiny. National members look for accountability, and that is why we are not happy with the bill.

The Regulations Review Committee also put out a warning at that time. It said: “We question there are sufficient reasons to allow an Act of Parliament to be amended by a regulation in this way.” The committee sent out a caution. It was not happy about this happening. The bill may be administratively convenient, but that must be weighed up against the loss of parliamentary oversight. National says that when legislation comes in with no accountability and with no opportunity for members to have a say, then that is an abuse of the system and we are not happy with it. The Regulations Review Committee had a very, very powerful message for us, but this Government said that it was not interested in that message, and would go ahead regardless with the points it wanted to make.

For the points I have mentioned—the abuse of the system and the way that this bill will allow the executive, by Order in Council, to make decisions that will affect all of us in the future—I say that National is strongly opposed to this bill.

Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health) : I stand to support this bill. Having just listened to the member who has resumed his seat, I realise that National members speak out of both sides of their mouths. On one hand, they are always talking about wanting to keep down the costs of bureaucracy, but when a bill gives us the ability to get rid of things like technical redundancies, they are opposed to it. National cannot have it both ways. The senior Labour whip said in his speech that the public would be pleased with this bill, and he is right. This bill saves money for long-suffering taxpayers by reducing unnecessary payments for technical redundancies, which occur when a person gets a payout when moving from one Government department to another. This is a good bill, and I am glad it is making progress through this House.

SANDRA GOUDIE (NZ National—Coromandel) : As members are aware, the National Opposition opposes the bill. One of the greatest concerns I have is the continual stream of ill-conceived legislation being put through the House by this Labour Government. In the formulation of legislation there is a set of guidelines that can be referred to, called Legislative Changes: Guidelines on Process and Content. Submitters referred to those guidelines because of their grave concerns about this legislation. There have been a number of revised editions of those guidelines, and the copy I have is of Report No. 6, December 1991. The committee members were people with significant experience, and I will name a few of them: Professor Brookfield, Fogarty QC, Galbraith QC, Sir Kenneth Keith, Justice Robertson, and Judge Sheppard.

The first question to ask is whether the legislation is necessary. Essentially, the bill does two things. First, it removes structural change to State departments from public scrutiny. Do we need legislative change for that—in the interests of maintaining accountability to the public? No, it is neither needed nor wanted, because for any of those sorts of changes, Parliament must be accountable to the public. We have here a bill that intends to ignore the guidelines already mentioned. Page 29 of those guidelines states that Parliament has to approve the addition of new departments to the list of departments scheduled in the State Sector Act, as well as deletions and alterations. The reason for that recommendation is quite simple: Parliament must be open to public scrutiny. The august body of significant expertise that comprises that committee has already described the reasons for that, and makes that recommendation objectively and free of constraint or political interference.

One very valid concern about this bill is that the ease of changes to departments would result in the politicisation of the public service and give the Government the ability to use the disbandment of a department as a threat. The committee’s concern was expressed during the public submission process of the original bill way back in 2001, but, as members are aware, the bill has sat on the shelf since then. We come to 2003, and there is an amendment to that bill even longer than the bill itself, which has not been through the public process.

The second critical aspect is that the bill allows the Crown to override contracts by statute. That was a major concern of the New Zealand Law Society, and so the question arises: do we need legislative change for such a purpose? Again, the answer is no. It is neither needed nor wanted. Here the Government is not only promoting legislation, but promoting legislation, knowing fully that it intends to be the beneficiary as a result of that bill being passed.

How does this bill fit with the Employment Relations Act? The Public Service Association’s submission makes it quite clear that many aspects of the bill are based on principles already negotiated in management-of-change clauses in collective contracts and agreements, so that outcome can already be achieved through the negotiation phase of those agreements. We do not need legislation to do that. What will this bill do to the Public Service Association’s ability to negotiate contracts freely? Without going through a full legislative process and the scrutiny of a select committee, the bill has absolutely no commentary to address any of the real questions of concern that have been raised.

So what are the legal implications of so-called technical redundancies, where employees of Government departments are not entitled to compensation even though their employment contract agreements might provide for compensation? As I have already mentioned, their negotiated contracts—whether they are individual or collective contracts—can address those areas of concern, and so they do not need to be part of a legislative change. Yet again, I refer members back to the guidelines.

Another basic principle in the formulation of legislation is that the legislation being formed must fit appropriately into the general body of existing law. Moreover, the guidelines also state that where there has been any departure from the guidelines set down in the No. 6 report, the departure needs to be indicated, along with the reasons for it. Clearly, that has not been done with this bill. There is no commentary on the substantive changes that were introduced into the House last week.

I am sure that all of the questions could have been answered had the bill been allowed to go through the proper legislative process, by which amendments would have been referred back to the select committee. That is where the proper parliamentary process has been sidestepped. This Government has failed the people of New Zealand in the promotion of this bill. Apart from the denial of public process when undertaking changes in the State sector, there has been a denial of public process when attempting to find answers to the many questions that have been raised as a result of substantive amendments to the original bill.

The responsibility for developing legislation in accordance with the guidelines rests with the Minister, and it is quite clear that the Minister has failed in a number of respects in introducing this legislation. He has failed to provide the opportunity for the Supplementary Order Paper to be put before the select committee, which is a gross omission on the part of this Government and a failure of its fiduciary duty. Lianne Dalziel mentioned fiduciary duty last week, but I wonder whether this Labour Government understands what fiduciary duty actually means. It means governing for the benefit of the nation as a whole, and to do that one has to go through proper legislative processes and invite the public to be a part of that process. But although this Government requires a huge amount of consultative process on the one hand—particularly with local government—it is sidestepping its responsibility in not providing for a consultative public process on the substantive amendment to this bill on the other hand. It has absolutely failed in its fiduciary responsibility to the people of New Zealand.

National is glad to oppose this bill. We would expect the Government to reconsider it and send it back to the select committee, although I doubt it will do that at this late stage of the process. I think that is shameful, and we expect more. We can see the deterioration of the processes of this House in question time, and we can now see it with regard to legislation. This Government has absolutely failed in its fiduciary duty to the people of New Zealand.