Williamson Maurice: Holidays Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Williamson Maurice: Holidays Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:620;Page:16031] 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga) 
: 
 The previous speaker Paul Adams said that one eats an elephant one bite at a time but I say that one swallows a dead rat whole. I have to say that this is swallowing the biggest of dead rats I have ever seen. This is an appalling fix-up of a muck-up. I have to be careful in the way that I say it because if I get it wrong I will be thrown out of the Chamber. It is a fix-up of a muck-up. I will tell members why it is a fix-up of a muck-up. When the original bill in relation to holidays was put through the Government mucked it up. But today the Minister would have us believe that there are some unintended consequences that are now being fixed. I have heard him say that. Unintended consequences are also written about in the commentary to the bill. Has the Minister not read the commentary to the original bill that has the minority report from Deborah Coddington of ACT? That report makes it clear that these would be the consequences. The Minister cannot hide behind the fact that he did not know that the consequences were unintended or that after it all happened the rest of the world sort of went mad and said: “Oh my God I didn’t realise that.” It was brought up at the time. It was absolutely the clear intention of the Government at the time and suddenly it has all become too hot in the kitchen. There are already too many dead rats in the boiling pot all at once and the Government has decided that it had better bale out of it. So we now have a bill that is even more of a hotchpotch. 
I want to concentrate on relevant daily pay. I say to the Minister and to the people who are listening to this debate just how bizarre this gets. Relevant daily pay will not be just one’s ordinary wage but all of the other bonuses for attendance penal payments tool allowances and things that people get as part of their job. I want to go back to my days when I drove for Refrigerated Freight Lines driving a large truck and trailer units and so on. We received wet money—the Labour Party gets wet money every day because it is full of wets—when it was raining. If we were not putting containers on but had palletised milk powder we used to get a cover allowance because we had to put big covers over it get up on the top of them and strap them down. We used to get a rope allowance. We used to get all these little bits and pieces. If it was not wet we did not have pallets and we were not using ropes and covers then we did not get those allowances. 
However when people take days off as holiday how many people on their holiday get out into the back yard throw the tarpaulin over the house and start to pull ropes just for practice? If it is raining and they are on holiday they will go to the movies or whatever. Why should people get any of those special payments—the bonuses and additions—when they are on holiday? I do not think people should be getting any of them anyway. I argued at the time that people should be paid a straight base rate that was the proper rate and that getting wet as a truck driver was one of the hazards. It is like getting wet around Parliament can be a hazard. Many people have got quite wet around Parliament! 
This bill states that when people are off on their holidays they will be paid according to their relevant daily pay calculation. It will take account of all those special things they are paid because of the conditions that they were under while working even though they are not at work. For example when people decide that they will have their holiday next week and get their penal rate and their relevant daily pay the other poor sod who is back at work driving a truck and it is not raining and he does not have to put up tarpaulins is actually getting a lower rate of pay while he or she is at work than his or her mate from the same shift who is off on holiday swanning around the Gold Coast telling people: “I’m getting wet money today.” and when people say that it is a lovely sunny day: “It doesn’t matter the Government of New Zealand is so stupid that it passed a bill that gives me wet money even when I’m on holiday.” 
That is what this bill does. That is why we are opposed to it. We think people should get a proper rate of pay when they are on holiday and maybe when they have worked on a public holiday and are now taking the time off when it is a public holiday but not this absolute stupefying nonsense. This is mega dead-rat swallowing. 
What do members of the business community think about it? If the Minister was listening at all if he would wax out his ears and listen to what members of the business community are saying he would hear that they think this is an absolute outrage. If there is one thing members of the business community—and if any members of this Parliament say they have never heard it I want to talk to them—say day and night it is that they are sick to death of compliance costs in this country and this adds to it.