Mapp Wayne: Employment Relations Law Reform Bill — In Committee 
Mapp Wayne: Employment Relations Law Reform Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:620;Page:16133] 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 This is a complex bill and as I noted last night Part 1 has 117 clauses. I want to make a particular point since I notice that Mr Tamihere is in the Chamber which is a rare occasion. I point out that there is a special Supplementary Order Paper that allows Mr Tamihere to vote for a 90-day probationary period for new workers. That Minister goes up and down this country I know saying that that is what is needed in our industrial law. Perhaps later this evening he will have the opportunity to vote for precisely that because I have drafted a provision that deals with that very issue. I would expect that the Minister will be a man of his word will have the courage of his convictions and will vote for that proposition. New Zealand employers want that and that Minister knows it. He should therefore vote for it. 
I want to speak on two further issues in this debate. The first is on the sale of businesses which goes under what might be seen as the benign title of restructuring. Actually that is quite duplicitous. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I do not think I need to have this assurance but I would still like to have it. The Committee resumed about 3 minutes before 6 o’clock and I would have been able to give you an excellent speech. I hope it will not be held against me that I could not be here then and I will go for a call later. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: I look forward to hearing that excellent speech. Before the dinner break Dr Wayne Mapp was speaking and he has 3½ minutes remaining. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: Prior to the dinner break I was talking about two particular issues and the first is in relation to the value destruction provisions in this bill. Those provisions known as Part 6A inserted into Part 1 by clause 30 are said to be about restructuring but are more properly called value destruction. This Government has created a mythical concept of so-called vulnerable workers who will have extraordinary powers to receive information about the possible intents and plans of people to sell their businesses. They may well get that information—in fact will get that information—before the businesses go on the market. Those people will have the opportunity by industrial action and the like to diminish and reduce the value of those businesses. The Minister has the power by Order in Council to add anyone he wants into that category without reference back to this Parliament except by way of those statutory regulations. 
That is fundamentally wrong. To give those sorts of powers to these extreme leftists—these hard-left unionists who infest the Government—is wrong. The Minister himself is paying his dues today by supporting this bill. When I hear this slur—I guess it is—about “Swainy and the boys” I know that it is a falsehood because this bill is proof of it. In fact it is him paying his debt to his union mates. 
By creeping erosion the value is being destroyed in New Zealand businesses. People will be advised early and effectively get redundancy. That redundancy will come straight off the top of the value of the business. It will reduce the sale price and because people have early notice they will be able to manipulate it to reduce the value even more than would be the case. That is fundamentally wrong. Why would the Government go out of its way to hurt hard-working business owners who have had to put much more than a 40-hour week into their businesses to build value only to have the Government by its manipulative interventions destroy that value? 
I will seek a fourth call on another issue. It is a fundamental issue and it is the politically correct madness of putting the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi right through all legislation. 
Hon Dover Samuels 
: Here we go again: knock the Maoris. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: Mr Samuels thinks it is a good idea that in employment law we have the principles of the treaty inserted into that legislation. There is a new schedule to that effect.