Rich Katherine: Employment Relations Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Rich Katherine: Employment Relations Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:633;Page:5093] 
KATHERINE RICH (National) 
: 
 Thank you Mr Chairman. I rise to speak to the purpose clause of the Employment Relations Amendment Bill. I went into the lobby and referred myself to the principal Act itself and I must say that in looking at it I am gobsmacked. A member who goes to get this Act from the lobby shelves will find it riddled with red pen markings and flimsy tissue paper additions. It is almost totally impossible for a member to get a good overview of exactly what the law in the principal Act is at this time because so many changes have been made to it since it came into force. 
Paula Bennett 
: Fifteen amendments. 
KATHERINE RICH 
: The Act has had 15 amendments which is just outrageous. If we look through the Act itself we find flimsy bits of paper added at various points and markings from a red pen all over the place. It just shows the Committee that when this legislation was first brought into the House it was done at great speed. It was done without rigorous work being done on it and without attention being paid to detail. Those are the reasons the House comes back time and time again to deal with the changes that need to be made. It would be interesting for members to know exactly how much it costs us to have to turn our attention to patching the mistakes made in the original drafting. 
The purpose clause in this bill states that its aim is to clarify the application of a particular clause especially in respect of specified categories of employees—or vulnerable workers as this Government likes to call them. As I said when I spoke on this bill previously this Government thinks that people are vulnerable workers if they work in the food service industry if they work at the airport and if they undertake cleaning. But if a Thai immigrant does some tiling—or is charged with tiling half of Samoa by all accounts—then he is vulnerable in no way. 
Members on that side of the Chamber continue to stand there and defend the treatment of that tiler saying that he was not vulnerable at all but that he was a professional person entering into a professional contract. We all know that it takes great skill to be a tiler but I do not know how members on the other side of the Chamber can continue day after day to defend what has been done then when they come into this Committee in their next breath go on and on about their concern for vulnerable workers in New Zealand. As members on that side like to say there is an “h” word for that. Certainly on this side of the Chamber we are getting sick of that kind of rhetoric because it does not ring true in terms of what they are actually doing. 
We are also hearing here a discussion about how the treatment of these employees can change and the purpose clause refers to a change of application to succession contracts. It is designed to give one the impression that that is a contract that has been going for some time and will naturally roll over and be renewed. But what this bill does is exactly the opposite. This bill basically negates fixed-term contracts so that people can enter into a contract for service and although they receive the worst service they have ever experienced in their life they are not able to enjoy the termination of the contract when it finishes. 
That is exactly what the Dunedin Kindergarten Association faced. It loyally waited until the end of its contract before deciding to go out and get a new firm to come and do the cleaning. That makes sense to us on this side of the Chamber. The association waited until the end of the contract. It did not break the contract; it loyally decided to stick with the cleaners until it had the legal right to say: “See you later.” But this Government is saying no that they can look beyond a fixed-term contract and in fact force that employment relationship to keep going even after a contract is terminated. If people cannot enter into a fixed-term contract then that makes it very difficult for small businesses to be able to undertake the kind of work they do. 
In 2004 the Prime Minister stood up at the New Zealand Franchise Awards beside CleanTastic Commercial Cleaning a business franchise that was franchisee of the year. That franchise oversees over 300 mum and dad operations that run very small businesses. They have small contracts and go out and clean our schools and kindergartens. The Prime Minister had her photo taken got all the credit and now is ruining its business.