Mackey Moana: Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Mackey Moana: Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:668;Page:15449] 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 I have some suggestions for alternative titles for this awful legislation that we are debating here in urgency today. The first alternative title we could call it is the “Employment Relations (Broken Promise) Amendment Bill” because members may remember that back in the election campaign in order to make the 90-day trial period for small businesses appear not so Draconian much was made of the fact that it would apply only to businesses with fewer than 20 employees. Much was made of that. National MPs went to extraordinary lengths to make it clear that this would not apply across the entire workforce only to small businesses. So here we have another broken— 
Hon Tau Henare 
: It’s the wrong bill. It’s a new year. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: There is Tau Henare. Mr Henare knows I like to say that he is the worst union organiser in the history of the universe. I actually think Mr Henare is a Trojan Horse designed to try to bring down the union movement from within. That is the only way that I can work out how he managed to get that job. But coming back to this bill it is a broken promise because the Government promised that it would not extend the 90-day trial period to businesses with more than 20 employees. Remember that Government members were at pains to say that it would not apply to teachers. It would not apply to teachers even if they were in a small school because they were employed by the ministry. Now it applies to everyone. It is another broken promise in what is proving to be a long list of broken promises from this National-led Government. 
Another alternative title could be the “Employment Relations (Legalised Discrimination) Amendment Bill” because that is essentially what this bill does. We already had trial periods under New Zealand employment law. It was nothing new to have a trial period. Labour is not opposed to trial periods at all. The only change National made when it came into Government was to the ability of an employee to challenge a dismissal if it was unfair. I want to know why National members think that it is unreasonable for employees to be told why they are being fired. Why is it unreasonable for employees to be told why they are being fired or why they are having their livelihood taken away from them? How can they improve themselves and how can we increase productivity through employees being able to improve their work if they are not told what is wrong with their performance? There is no requirement to tell them. They can just be told “Don’t come Monday.” and no reason given. 
This is where we come to the legalised discrimination. If for example a woman is employed and within the first 90 days she becomes pregnant and the boss does not want to have to deal with a woman who will go on maternity leave he or she could just say “Don’t come Monday.” That could happen even if all of her performance reviews up to that point had been exemplary and she had had wonderful feedback from the boss saying that the firm was so happy to have her was so lucky to have her and she was fantastic and then suddenly she announces she is pregnant and the next day she is fired. Under this legislation that the National Government has passed and is extending to the rest of the workforce she would have no ability to challenge that even though it is clear that she is being fired for being pregnant. As long as the boss says that her job is not working out or she does not fit in there or if the boss finds out that someone is gay or if they join a union and the boss does not want to have to deal with that or finds out that they are a member of the Labour Party and the boss does not agree with their political affiliations then that will be OK.