Fenton Darien: State Sector and Public Finance Reform Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Fenton Darien: State Sector and Public Finance Reform Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 28 November 2012. Volume:686;Page:6934. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 I rise to take a call in the first reading of the State Sector and Public Finance Reform Bill. I believe that my colleagues have laid out our differences with this bill very very clearly. I do want to emphasise that on this side of the House we have no problem with the idea of building Better Public Services or whatever slogan the National Party is using at the moment. There is no doubt about it there are some good things in this bill. It has a mixture of some good things and some deeply worrying measures. 
On the one hand there are the proposed provisions that will enhance whole-of-Government approaches which should lessen duplication and silo behaviour. We support Government agencies working more closely together. We agree with sharing some functions and services purchasing goods and services jointly and developing systems together in order to best leverage the resources of the State. So I want to repeat for the benefit of the National Government that Labour is in agreement with many of the provisions that are in this bill but we have some fundamental differences. As I said my colleagues have laid them out very clearly but I intend to repeat the three major concerns that we have with this bill and the reason we feel that we cannot vote for it tonight. 
The first concern that we have is the provision that enables the delegation of the functions or powers of chief executives to someone outside the public sector. This could include a contractor in the private sector and all that is required is the Minster’s approval—no other test just the Minister’s approval. We would like to know why this is being proposed. Why would the functions or powers of chief executives be taken outside the public sector other than to provide an opportunity for the Government to give jobs to its mates or have its mates get more of their mitts on Public Service decision-making and resources? 
This change will reduce the opportunity for parliamentary and public scrutiny and it will facilitate privatisation. The Government can deny it all it likes but we have seen it in the prison service. I think that is what this is really about because there is no doubt about it the change would make it easier to contract out statutory functions. It would fragment services and reduce oversight and public accountability. That is an extraordinary provision. If the agenda is not how I have described it I look forward to the Government refuting that in the select committee and meeting our concerns. 
The second area that I want to outline is the one that my colleagues have discussed at length which is the restriction on the scrutiny applied to Ministers and departments. I think we have had a very good description tonight from Clayton Cosgrove and Chris Hipkins about the role of parliamentarians in applying scrutiny to Ministers and departments for the money that they spend the money of taxpayers that they spend and the decisions that they make. But instead we are going to see that scrutiny halved from what I can tell from the bill. Instead of yearly strategic information we are going to get it 3-yearly. 
What worries me about these provisions is that they are not a move for better transparency or accountability. We are very concerned about the restriction on access that we are already experiencing. Others have mentioned the Official Information Act. We all know that process is fraught. Appealing to the Ombudsman is just really hard. It means an MP’s objections just join a very long queue as an under-resourced office tries to cope with the avoidance tactics of this Government. We need far more openness not greater restrictions on the provision of information and we are very concerned about the implications of this on the estimates and the financial review processes. The provisions are far from clear and I have heard nothing from the Government members that gives me any assurance about that. 
There seems to be a trend towards shutting down public debate. For example the minimum wage consultation was opened up last week. The Acting Minister of Labour was asked questions by me about the process and whether it was changing and he said it was under Cabinet consideration. That was like a week or two ago. The Council of Trade Unions and Business New Zealand have been advised that they are the only parties that are going to be consulted about the minimum wage review and there are only three criteria that will apply. They have been given until next week to get their submissions in. The Council of Trade Unions for example represents 350000 workers throughout New Zealand and it is supposed to get a submission in by next week. It has been given about a week and a half. I think that is outrageous and I think it is deliberately designed to make sure that consultation and people having a say are curtailed. 
I think the most objectionable part of this bill for me is the proposal to establish Government Workforce Policy Orders. These are policies drafted by the State Services Commission that can be made into Government Workforce Policy Orders by an Order in Council on the recommendation of the Minister. These can cover matters such as pay and conditions and they can apply to a single agency or to more than one agency which could be departments Crown agents or autonomous Crown entities. So the parameters of collective bargaining such as pay and conditions will have a level of interference that is in direct contradiction to our labour laws. It effectively lets the Government decree the outcome of bargaining before the process has even begun. I see this as a massive breach of the good-faith provisions of our collective bargaining laws and an assault on our international labour laws and human rights. 
Why would the Government do this? I have been puzzling over this. This Government may have been looking to Wisconsin in the United States and maybe this is New Zealand’s version of Wisconsin’s attack on collective bargaining rights in the public sector. Wisconsin mounted a politically motivated attack on its Public Service workers a couple of years ago removing from them the right to collectively bargain. The court has just reinstated those rights saying that the removal violated the workers’ right to free speech freedom of association and equal protection. 
We know this Government is hell-bent on reducing expenditure in the State sector come what may and we have seen the fallout from that with its stuff-ups in IT and its short-sighted cuts in front-line services but we also know that State sector workers are highly unionised. That means that they are a bit of an obvious target for implementing employment policies aimed at reducing the influence on the overall labour market and aimed at cutting wages. 
When you put this change together with the Government’s intentions to change collective bargaining rules for all workers the picture starts to come together. It goes hand in hand with the Government’s plan to gut collective bargaining to enable new staff to be employed on less pay and conditions to enable employers to walk away from collective bargaining and for multi-employer agreements to be ditched. 
We are very concerned about those three provisions in particular around the collective bargaining in the State sector. Wages are already too low in New Zealand. Take away collective bargaining in the State sector further weaken unions then the only thing that workers will have left to fall back on is the good old trickle-down theory. We know that did not work. I would ask why any State sector worker would put up with that. They have been demoralised overworked and restructured to death and they are undervalued by this Government. I think that these provisions are atrocious and that is why we cannot support this bill. 
Debate interrupted.