Peck Mark: Status of Redundancy Payments Bill — First Reading 
Peck Mark: Status of Redundancy Payments Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:606;Page:4033] 
MARK PECK (NZ Labour—Invercargill) 
: 
 I move  
That the Status of Redundancy Payments Bill be now read a first time. 
 This bill arises as a result of the closure of the Weddel freezing works and the redundancies that occurred as a result of that. In particular I acknowledge the efforts of my colleague Rick Barker who was the original drafter of the bill and who worked with people from the freezing works involved. 
It is an interesting thing when people are made redundant. All the things that we hold precious in our society—having a family and a home and the ability to participate in society—are predicated on being able to earn a living. Going through periods of reform as we have done over the last couple of decades means quite a lot of dislocation. As a result of that reform workers went through periods of time in their lives where employment was anything but secure. The only way to compensate for the loss of jobs and the time it took people to find new gainful employment was through instruments such as redundancy. Some workers did not get any redundancy at all. Those who did all too often found themselves in a position in which if a company went belly up their wages and holidays were protected to a sum of about $2500—which was subsequently raised to $6000—but no further. Ultimately their ability to put their lives back together again became severely curtailed as a result of the loss of redundancy payments. 
That is simply wrong. Anybody who thinks about it seriously will agree that it is wrong. Reorganisation is not the fault of an employee. It is not the fault of an employee that the economy went through such changes that companies went belly up. Many had given long and faithful employment to their employers during that period of time and subsequently found themselves unable to do anything about the circumstances they and their families faced. The loss of that redundancy payment was for many the last straw. Anybody who has been involved in dealing with those matters in the labour market will tell stories about the effect that the loss of employment has on families. 
The number of men I know—and I say men deliberately in this case—who could not go home and face their partners and tell them that they had lost their employment would normally make one weep. They just simply could not get up the courage to say: “I no longer have a job.” For months on end many of them would deny to their partner that they were not working. That in its own right set up a number of very difficult situations for families and family breakdown during that time was not an unheard of thing. There were also worse cases than family breakdown. When some freezing works were closed in Southland a number of people finally could not cope any longer and committed suicide. It is a matter of concern to this Parliament. I say even to the members of the ACT party—and ACT members champion the cause of property rights to a high degree—that the greatest property right a person can have is the right to earn a living because every other right that comes from that is predicated upon it. 
This bill will protect redundancy as structured in an insolvency. It will amend the Companies Act to make redundancy payments a preferential claim when a company goes into liquidation or receivership. The workers from Weddel had to line up with all other unsecured creditors for their redundancy payments and it is now a matter of record that they did not get what was owed to them. They believed—quite rightly in my view—that should their employment with the company cease they would be compensated in some measure through redundancy agreements for their loss of employment. We are attempting to do that. 
John Carter 
: What about the farmers losing their stock? 
MARK PECK 
: As the member will know the farmers did raise some very serious issues about what happened to the stock in that situation. The member will well understand that. I believe that matter also has some currency but on this particular occasion we are dealing with the issue of redundancy and I ask the member to consider that. 
John Carter 
: I’m more worried about the farmers. 
MARK PECK 
: The member might be more worried about the farmers but he is not the only one worried about the farmers. It is very refreshing—and I note that Shane Ardern is sitting next to the member—that the National Party is worried about the farmers on this occasion. There are things that need to be done. 
I am pleased that there has been some movement in this area and I congratulate my colleague Lianne Dalziel on the work she has done. I also recognise the contribution made by Laila Harré to doing something about the insolvency laws. Some announcements have been made and already movement has been announced whereby the employee priority will now include some measure of redundancy payment up to a maximum of $15000. That is an enormous increase on the position we were at and I pass on my congratulations to the Minister on that. 
There is not much more I want to say about the bill except to conclude as I started: when redundancy occurs it is life-changing and devastating to those involved. The way that workers have been treated through the insolvency laws has in many respects been nothing short of scandalous and has left many people unable to support even their most basic needs. It is time that Parliament addressed the matter. This bill is an attempt to raise the issue. The Government has made some moves on it which I acknowledge. I seek the support of Parliament for this bill to go to a select committee so that we can take the submissions and look at what further work needs to be done to ensure that when workers are faced with that dreadful position in the future they do not face the same problems as the Weddel workers. 
In closing I want to make one final comment. This bill was introduced into the ballot in 1996. When I read through the explanatory note I noticed that there was a comment about the Minister of Agriculture having plans for further meatworks closures. I am pleased to say that it is certainly not the intention of this Minister to close any freezing works at all. However as the bill had been printed it was far too late to change the explanatory note which did of course relate to a former Minister and a previous Government.