Bennett Paula: Employment Relations (Breaks and Infant Feeding) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Bennett Paula: Employment Relations (Breaks and Infant Feeding) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 02 September 2008. Volume:649;Page:18193. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
PAULA BENNETT (National) 
: 
 Thank you for the opportunity to speak in the Committee on the Employment Relations (Breaks and Infant Feeding) Amendment Bill. I will start off by talking about the importance of breastfeeding by our young mums—and our not-so-young mums as it happens to be in society a bit these days—and perhaps talk about how that actually works in the workplace. Although I am not a big fan of over-regulation and certainly find parts of this bill a little unnecessary if nothing else it has brought the issue a bit more to the fore. People are speaking a bit more about what that relationship means when women have a baby and then go back to work and how they juggle working the care of the child breastfeeding and everything else so how could we in the National Party not stand up and support that as being a good thing at the end of the day? 
When it comes to meal breaks I do not think I am alone in being relatively appalled at some of the stories that we heard such as those about people who perhaps did not get breaks had feelings of disadvantage and did not feel like they could stand up and have their voices heard on the issue. So to say that I thought this legislation was necessary would be utterly wrong but to say that if it has to be passed and this is the way that this Government thinks all problems can be solved—if it moves then legislate and regulate—then we actually can stand up and support it. 
This morning I will talk a bit about process. I do not think that anyone out there would disagree that if it were a National Government that was slipping a Supplementary Order Paper through like this one is being slipped through—at the last minute when the public had not had the opportunity to address it—and it was being introduced after the select committee process there would be an uproar from the other side of the Chamber. I can tell members that the uproar is happening from this side. We say that people deserve transparency on the issue. People deserve an opportunity to have a say on this Supplementary Order Paper because it makes a fundamental difference to the bill and therefore makes a fundamental difference to their workplaces. People deserve the opportunity to make sure there is transparency on this issue and they deserve an opportunity to be heard. This Clark-Peters Government is not giving them that opportunity and it is stepping aside and thinking it can slip something through under urgency at the last minute. That is appalling for process. It is bad lawmaking and bad for process to slip in a Supplementary Order Paper at the last minute that contains an amendment that makes a fundamental difference. That is wrong and people have a right to be heard. This Clark-Peters Government is a Government that supposedly stands up for democracy and believes that that should actually be happening. This process is obviously not open democracy.  
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Tell us about open democracy National Party—what do you stand for? What are your policies? 
PAULA BENNETT 
: Mr Cunliffe wishes to speak about open democracy and let us do that. Let us talk about what this bill actually means for employers when it comes to the KiwiSaver scheme and how it can happen. If this was so important that it needed to go through I ask the Minister in the chair the Hon Trevor Mallard why it was not put through at the beginning of the process and why it is being snuck through under urgency at the end of the process. I think that is a question that the Minister should stand up and be counted on—that he should put on record. Why was this Supplementary Order Paper not presented months ago when we were dealing with the 17th or 18th amendment to this legislation because it was rushed through so appallingly in the beginning? Why are we still rushing amendments through and why is the public not having a say on something that is of importance to them in their workplaces and in their workplace relationships? While this Clark-Peters Government rails on about how important process is how important open democracy is and how important it is to be open we are seeing a classic example of something being snuck through in urgency without the substance to go with it. 
Throughout the Committee stage on this bill we certainly heard people talking about breastfeeding and how important it is. I think it is for a small number of people who are still breastfeeding and who wish to have that in the workplace but we heard from employers that they saw that as being important as well and that they felt it was something they could accommodate relatively easily although it will differ from workplace to workplace as to how they actually do it. 
We heard about meal and rest breaks. In fact we heard that it is happening across the board and it is not such an issue. As far as this legislation is concerned I know that my colleagues on the select committee certainly spent a lot of time trying to make sure there was that bit of flexibility. The flexibility needed for those rest and meal breaks is as much for the advantage of the employee as it might be for the employer. We heard many instances of when employees wish to take a 10-minute break and attach that other 30 minutes at the end of the day so they can go home early to their children. They were looking at that sort of flexibility in their working arrangements. I only hope that this move to legislate will not deter some of those flexible arrangements that happen for employees and employers at the moment. Thank you Madam Chair. 
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 229 in the name of the Hon Trevor Mallard to Part 1 be agreed to.