Moroney Sue: Employment Relations (Breaks and Infant Feeding) Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Moroney Sue: Employment Relations (Breaks and Infant Feeding) Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:649;Page:18186] 
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
 Thank you Mr Chairman for the opportunity to speak to Part 1 of the Employment Relations (Breaks and Infant Feeding) Amendment Bill. Well well is it not interesting to see the real agenda of National Party members coming out loud at this time in the parliamentary cycle? They have been pretending to support this legislation for such a long time; it has always been my estimation that that was a very surface pretence at supporting the legislation and now they think they have found the perfect excuse to withdraw their support. Dr Mapp said before that they will continue to support and vote for the legislation. Well I look forward to that because I tell Dr Mapp that the third reading of this bill is not very far away and I look forward to his holding on to his word and voting for the legislation at its third reading. But somehow I doubt that that will happen because I think the real agenda of the National Party will come out during the third reading of this legislation. 
I am very pleased as one of the members of Parliament who helped to draft this bill and actually had part of this legislation as my member’s bill to see it being dealt with under urgency because these are urgent matters. I am also very pleased to see that the purpose of the bill will be extended by a Supplementary Order Paper to stop employers making it grounds for a personal grievance where employers try to disadvantage employees who have chosen to save for their retirement. That is what we are trying to do in this country. KiwiSaver has made a significant difference to the savings culture in this country. We have moved people quite some distance from a credit card culture where people have been spending money that they actually do not have to a savings culture saving for their retirement. Is that not a great thing? 
David Bennett 
: They have lost money on it. 
SUE MORONEY 
: I tell David Bennett to listen to the numbers; 700000 New Zealanders are now saving for their retirement thanks to the foresight of this great Labour Government and Dr Michael Cullen in particular. We are ensuring that we safeguard those 700000 New Zealanders so that they do not get ripped off by their employers and also so that their employers do not pocket taxpayer money because in fact that is what has been happening. Employers have had tax credits that fund the 1 percent employer contribution and where they take that 1 percent off the wages of those workers they are putting the taxpayer contribution to KiwiSaver literally in their back pocket. That is not acceptable. It is certainly not acceptable to a Labour-led Government. It might be acceptable to National and we have not heard one speaker from National saying what his or her actual position is on that stance taken by employers over KiwiSaver. 
What has National got to say about good decent working New Zealanders making the commitment to save for their retirement and having their employers disadvantage them by cutting their wages? What is the National Party’s position on that? It is very clear what the Labour-led Government’s position is on that. It is that we will not tolerate it; and we will not tolerate it by moving this amendment.