Katene Rahui: Holidays Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Katene Rahui: Holidays Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
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RAHUI KATENE (Maori Party—Te Tai Tonga) 
: 
 I am very pleased to stand and speak on this Holidays Amendment Bill and I find it so interesting that the two parties that believe in less government and less legislation are actually using legislation to tell people how they should be living their lives. Earlier today the Maori Party received an email that told us in no uncertain terms exactly how we needed to vote on this bill. It said: “If we allow workers to covert”—I think he meant convert—“time to cash the next obvious step is for employers to say ‘We are obviously giving too many days holidays. The workers don’t need them. The fact that they are selling them is proof in itself’.” It went on to say: “The people who will sell their holidays are the lowly paid ones and already work the most overtime and who really need the holidays and times with their whanau.” The email finished in large capital letters with “VOTE NO”. 
We as a caucus have had a very passionate and considered discussion of the issues raised by this legislation and I want to address those issues one by one. First the bill allows employers and employees to agree to transfer the observance of public holidays to another working day. We saw this as a very significant advance in allowing a mechanism by which whanau members could identify days of special cultural significance for them for which they sought leave: days like Te Hui Ahurei o Tuhoe the Ratana celebration and the recognition of the 18th day for those from Taranaki iwi. The opportunity to honour one’s cultural and spiritual legacy is something we supported. But this bill then twists this opportunity by stipulating that should the employer and employee not agree then the employers should direct when an alternative holiday is taken. If I as the employee tell the employer that I will work on Queen’s Birthday so that I can take the day on which Matariki falls as a holiday but the employer does not agree what is the point in my working on Queen’s Birthday if I cannot then take off the day I need to observe my culture? 
The second issue is that the bill allows employers to request proof of sickness or injury within the first 3 consecutive calendar days of an employee taking sick leave without first having reasonable grounds to suspect that the sick leave is not genuine. Although we would be the first to argue for transparency and accountability as core principles of any employment relationship we cannot fail but be influenced by statements made by the New Zealand Nurses Organisation and the New Zealand Educational Institute speaking on behalf of some 46000 nurses and 50000 education staff in primary schools and early childhood centres. It is their collective view that the new law has implications for children’s health and welfare. They suggest that the new law may mean that parents who use their own sick leave to care for their children are less likely to stay home with their children if they fear that doing so will put their employment at risk. That could result in more ill children attending schools and kohanga the implications of that being obvious. 
They also pointed out that New Zealand law currently provides for 5 days of sick leave a year which is one of the lowest rates in the OECD. Further to that New Zealanders currently take on average 4.6 days’ sick leave a year compared with 7.4 days in Britain and 8.6 days in Australia. We can take from that comparison that either we are a lot more sturdy than our British and Australian counterparts or that we drag ourselves to work at varying stages of ill health simply because our leave restrictions are so harsh. 
The third issue is that the bill allows by agreement 1 week of an employee’s minimum entitlement to annual holidays to be commuted for a cash payment to the employee. This was a difficult one for us. We know that some members of our community are faced with such difficult and compromised financial constraints that the opportunity to cash in their holiday leave might just well be the respite they need to ease the grind of everyday poverty but we cannot reconcile the fact that we firmly believe that every worker has the right to rest and recreation. They have the right not to be working every hour of the day every day of the week unlike MPs. They have the right to enjoy being with their whanau. So we firmly believe that the right thing to do is to support employment legislation that promotes opportunities for employees to be with their families and to benefit from rest. 
We are also influenced by the view that came to the select committee that in this bill there are no safeguards against employers wielding undue pressure on an employee to cash up their leave and sell away their holiday. We gave this bill the benefit of the doubt in previous stages but as I indicated to Mr Mallard at this third and final reading we are simply faced with too many questions to be able to satisfy our concerns. We believe on balance that this legislation should not be supported and therefore we will be voting against the bill.