Mapp Wayne: Holidays Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Mapp Wayne: Holidays Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:621;Page:16252] 
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.