Mallard Trevor: Employment Relations (Statutory Minimum Redundancy Entitlements) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Mallard Trevor: Employment Relations (Statutory Minimum Redundancy Entitlements) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:662;Page:10771] 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 If the speech from the member who has just resumed his seat David Bennett were made outside the House I think it could be described fairly as hypocritical. I know we cannot say that in here but if it were it would be. That member after being here for 18 months has an entitlement to a redundancy worth over $32000. That member after a very short period of time in this House has a personal entitlement to well over $32000 worth of redundancy whether or not he runs at the next election. He could even retire at the next election which would be a logical thing to do and he would still get his redundancy money. He said that the most vulnerable people in New Zealand should not be allowed a pittance. 
I think frankly if there can be criticism of Darien Fenton’s Employment Relations (Statutory Minimum Redundancy Entitlements) Amendment Bill it is that it does not go far enough. The Public Advisory Group to the Minister of Labour on Restructuring and Redundancy came out with a unanimous recommendation supported by Business New Zealand. Business New Zealand consulted widely with its members and decided that the Government should consider the introduction of a statutory requirement for redundancy compensation and other entitlements incorporating the following features. 
Those features are notice compensation based on length of service and a maximum level of statutory compensation—this is what this does. It is doing what the employers asked for 2 years ago. Why did they ask for it? They know that having stability and loyalty from their workers is an important part of the employment arrangement. They know that having some stickiness in the labour market having people wanting to stay with an employer and having some sort of security if they stay there with the likelihood of a job going forward and being less likely to be fired if there is a redundancy arrangement are things that are good. It means that the incentives are on the employers to train people properly to provide them with decent equipment and to make them productive rather than making them redundant as is far too often the case. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: Now who’s the hypocrite? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: We will not talk to Mr Henare about how he left the trade union movement. That was a bit of a bottler on that occasion a bit of a bottler I say to Mr Henare. I do not know whether he got redundancy when he got the sack. [ 
Interruption 
] Well when he left Parliament he got $30000 redundancy money and he came back. Did he pay it back? No he did not. The Prime Minister said he would take the rough edges off the recession. He has; he has for his mates. He gave Bill English a free house when he was not entitled to one. He let Phil Heatley off when he cooked the books. But does he say to individual workers who are made redundant that they can have a minor redundancy payment? He says no. I think it is an outrage that this Government hates low-income workers. 
Michael Woodhouse 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The member made reference to a member “cooking the books”. I think that that is well out of order. I ask that he withdraw it. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: The member who cooked the books is in the House. He did not take offence. He is the one who pleaded guilty to putting in false claims. 
Michael Woodhouse 
: I am not asking for a withdrawal because I am offended I am asking for a withdrawal because it was way out of line with Standing Order 116. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: There are two points. Firstly a point of order has to be taken at the time that the offence was given. The comments were made quite some time back. It was not immediate. That is the first point that I make to you. I accept that the member was looking for the Standing Order but the point of order should taken at the time. It is very hard to rewind the tape and remember the exact words that were said. That is why the Standing Orders say to do it immediately so that people can have very fresh in the mind the exact words that were said. The second point is that it is against the Standing Orders to accuse someone of breaking the law. But cooking the books is a step short of that—it is. A lot of other words we come to are offensive but others are not. This is a House of robust debate. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Working families are facing hard times. This Government has a choice now to send a bill to a select committee to hear what people think. It does not have to guarantee now that it will support the bill at its later stages. All we want to know is that the Government is prepared to listen to a wide view from people. That is not a big thing. We are not asking for a definite support for the later stages. But we are asking for a relatively lazy Government to sit in a select committee and to listen—to sit in a select committee and to listen to the cases to listen the way that the employers did at the public advisory committee.