Bayly Andrew: Employment Standards Legislation Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBayly Andrew: Employment Standards Legislation Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 03 March 2016. Volume:711;Page:9400. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): It is a pleasure to be talking on the Employment Standards Legislation Bill. I just want to cover some of the key elements of it and it has been a very interesting process that we have been through in the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. In essence what this bill is about is seeking to make the workplace fairer and more productive not only for the employer but also for the employee. As the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety said earlier it really has three key areas that it focuses on: firstly parental leave and payments; secondly enhancing the enforcement of employment standards; and thirdly prohibiting certain unfair employment practices. I think everyone across the House is agreed that there is a need to refine and improve the situation and it is good to hear and to see people working collaboratively on that.Just in terms of the paid parental leave obligations as everyone knows we have increased the paid parental leave from 16 weeks to 18 weeks and that is coming into force next year but what this bill provides for is that recognition around pre-term babies. This is a really important concept. Basically it means that for anyone who has a baby before the full term of 37 weeks there is an additional adjustment made. So for instance if someone was to have a baby at 28 weeks they would get 9 weeks of paid parental leave in addition to the existing 16 weeks at the moment which will be increasing to 18 weeks. Secondly we have refined the keeping-in-touch provisions for mothers who go off to look after their babies and we have clarified the rules around that. Thirdly we have extended the definition of “primary carer”. This is a very important fact because what it means is it now recognises that it might be not only just the biological parents who are involved in the full-time care of a child but grandparents or other family members. So what that means is that these people can now also benefit from similar provisions.The second area is around stopping unfair employment practices and it really addresses the unfair practices by prohibiting certain practices that undermine the mutuality of obligations. In particular it requires employers to now specify the hours of work in the employment contract with the employee and it prohibits employers requiring employees to be available for hours in excess of those specified hours unless the employee has the absolute right to refuse that work with no subsequent penalties or whatever or certainly compensation is paid. There is also a requirement to specify in the employment contract what the required sufficient notice period is if you are going to cancel a shift. It is an issue that was very vexing to the committee and we considered it very appropriately and now there is a requirement for appropriate compensation to be payable to the employee in a situation where a shift is cancelled. It also prohibits employers from forcing employees not to work for other employers. Sometimes this is appropriate if there is intellectual property and other such matters and so there must be genuine grounds for it but the genuine grounds must be set out in the employment agreement between the employer and the employee.Finally in terms of the enforcement of minimum employment standards there are three key areas that this bill addresses. First of all there is now a specific requirement to keep sufficient details of hours of work. We were concerned that in certain circumstances people were working much longer than their stated hours of work. What this bill makes clear is the requirement on employees to keep a record of it because in effect you can work out what the hourly rate is on the basis of the actual hours worked. Secondly and related to that we have strengthened the provision for labour inspectors to go into workplaces and enforce these provisions. Thirdly we have imposed tougher sanctions on employers who are wanting to breach these employment standards. Just by way of note for individuals that fine or penalty has been increased to $50000 and for corporates it has been increased to $100000 or three times the gain that they may have got from doing inappropriate practices.So I think this is a very composite bill. It is a difficult area. There are many different types of employers and different types of roles. Some people are very happy to work in a casual situation; others are not. What we sought to do was draw a balance between those arrangements taking into account the myriad of employment arrangements across New Zealand. So I commend the bill to the House.