Brownlee Gerry: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Brownlee Gerry: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:620;Page:15742] 
4.  
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
 to the  
Minister of Labour 
: What consultation was carried out with the nearly 1.7 million non-union workers in New Zealand during the development of the Employment Relations Law Reform Bill? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN (Minister of Labour) 
: 
 There was extensive opportunity for non-union employees to have input into the development of the bill. For example during the 9 months that the bill was being considered by the select committee which advertised for submissions it received 354 substantive submissions over 7000 form submissions and heard 202 submissions over some 62 hours of sitting. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I did not ask any questions about the select committee process. Frankly the Minister has no responsibility for it. I asked him what consultation was undertaken by his department in the formation of the bill known as the Employment Relations Law Reform Bill. If the answer is no then he should just say so. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is not the question that the member asked. If the member reads the question he will see that it stated: “What consultation was carried out with the nearly 1.7 million non-union workers in New Zealand during the development of the Employment Relations Law Reform Bill?”. Part of that is obviously part of the select committee process in terms of the question asked. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. We would not have asked this question in this way if we were uncertain about what the Minister’s responsibilities were. The Minister is not responsible for a select committee process. He is not responsible for bus timetables either but it would seem that if he wants to stand up and give us some information off a bus timetable then that would stand as an answer in this House. This is a specific question about what consultation his department took with non-union workers—1.7 million of them—prior to that bill coming into the House. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: One thing the Minister is not responsible for is whether the question is poorly framed. The question asked: “… during the development of the Employment Relations Law Reform Bill?”. The fact is that a bill develops at all stages up to its third reading passage. The Minister is perfectly entitled to refer to the consultation process by a select committee which is a process this Parliament ought to be proud of. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I will say again—and my word will be accepted on this—that I have judged this question and the answer. The answer did address the actual question asked. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Are you ruling that from this point on Ministers have some responsibility for the select committee process? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No I am not. The Minister is not responsible for select committees but he is the Minister in charge of the bill and can be asked about its process through the House. That is one of the points he was answering when the question was asked. The question did not ask what the member thought it asked. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Has the Minister’s department any figures on how much extra revenue will be raised by the union movement from the imposition of a bargaining fee arrangement of 1.7 million New Zealanders who will be forced to pay union dues and as a consequence fund the Labour Party? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: It is enormously difficult to answer that question given that it is so ridiculous. The reality is that the member has implied that somehow 1.7 million people will pay union fees. He knows that to be not true. The fact of the matter is that bargaining-fee arrangements which will be tabled shortly have to meet three tests—firstly agreement between union and employer; secondly there has to be a ballot of all the workforce; and thirdly anyone who does not want to pay a bargaining fee does not have to. 
John Carter 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I listened very carefully to the question asked by Mr Gerry Brownlee. It asked what information the Minister’s department had given him. He has not addressed that question. He was specifically asked whether his department had done any work etc. The Minister did not address that question. That was a very specific question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Minister can briefly answer that particular specific question. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: No because the question was not correct. 
Hon Murray McCully 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. In the course of responding to the supplementary question asked by Mr Brownlee the Minister’s first statement was to describe the supplementary question as “ridiculous”. I ask you whether that is an acceptable way of a Minister commencing an answer to a question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: If that was all that was said it would not be and I would have stepped in. Comments like that are quite often made by way of interjection and by way of comment about questions. Certainly if that was the only thing that was said it would have been completely out of order. I have told the Minister to get on and address the question. 
Hon Mark Gosche 
: What reports has he seen about the ability of employers to pay union and non-union staff the same rates of pay? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: I have seen a report that states that the Employment Relations Law Reform Bill means that non-union staff cannot be paid the same amount as union staff. I have seen another report that dismisses such a claim. The first report is from Don Brash Leader of the Opposition and the second report is from associate professor Gordon Anderson an employment law expert. I know whom I would believe. 
Peter Brown 
: Noting the Minister’s earlier answer about a payment and a bargaining fee will he give this House an assurance that it will be a breach of good faith and treated very very severely if any non-union person or employer is compelled in any way shape or form to pay a bargaining fee against his or her will? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: Absolutely. 
Paul Adams 
: What consultation was carried out with the vast majority of employees who work in the private sector who are five times less likely to belong to a union than those in the public sector yet make a bigger contribution to the national economy when they are the very workers who will be disadvantaged by the bill because they will be discriminated against for not belonging to a union? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: As I said there is quite a lot of opportunity for consultation. However I say to the member that 90 percent of workers in the private sector are not covered by collective agreements and are not union members. The impact of that bill will be very very small indeed. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Will the Minister confirm to the House that associate professor Gordon Anderson whom he has just quoted is a left-wing activist who drafted part of the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions submission and has a considerable vested interest in not letting people know the full effect of the legislation? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: I cannot comment on his pedigree but I can say that he speaks real sense on this bill compared with the leader of the National Opposition Don Brash who speaks absolute nonsense. I recommend that the member read the bill. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The first part of the member’s question was in order and then started to stray. He certainly addressed it at that point. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I ask you to ask the Minister to give an answer to the question that was asked of him. How can he stand up here and so elo—so fulsomely—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I saw the Hon Chris Carter start that set of interjections. I will ask him to leave the Chamber and he will do it quietly. 
Hon Chris Carter withdrew from the Chamber. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That was quite uncalled for during a point of order. I have made mistakes in diction and so has just about every other person in this House. As far as I am concerned Mr Brownlee did on this occasion but he corrected it. I cannot see what is wrong with that. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: That is very true. I meant to say “elegantly” and of course I was referring to his tie! He talked so glowingly about associate professor Gordon Anderson who is touted to be an expert of some note and then told us that he did not know what his qualifications were. That is not congruous with that answer. He should correct himself or add more. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. He was asked whether he was a left-wing activist. He could have well been asked whether he was a right-wing inactivist but that was the point at which the Minister did not have an answer. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No please be seated. The question was addressed but there were comments at the end of the answer that were unnecessary. The Minister should have been more terse. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. What he did not tell us was—and given that it would seem that he is an expert on the select committee process and he was relying on that process to advise him so much—did associate professor Anderson write the Council of Trade Unions submission or part of it? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Minister is not responsible for that. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.  
Mr SPEAKER 
: This had better be an actual point of order. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: It certainly is because it could lead to disorder if we do not get the matter sorted out. The Minister has said that this gentleman is an expert of some note. I would like to know—and this is the nub of my question—whether he knows that by virtue of the fact that this professor wrote a substantial part of the Council of Trade Unions submission he has quite a vested interest in making sure that people do not fully understand the effects of this law. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: As far as I am concerned the question was asked about this particular gentleman. The Minister is not responsible for this gentleman’s submission—he can give an opinion on it but he is not responsible for the actual submission itself. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Can the Minister give the House some estimate of how many non-union members will be forced to pay a bargaining fee under this legislation? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: No. Very few.