Little AndrewHon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): That was sadly one of the most confused speeches and contributions on a piece of legislation I've heard in a long time. The idea that you empower workers by making them isolated and standing by themselves and giving all the power to the employer—that apparently constitutes empowering in the minds of the National Party! But that explains where the National Party is at. You see the National Party has never understood about the dignity of labour. They've never understood about the dignity of workers. They do not understand that the dignity of labour is not just about having a job. It is about having a job but it's about more than that as well. The National Party has never understood that the dignity of labour is about having a rewarding job a satisfying job a job that is challenging a job that is well rewarded.But here's the most important thing that the National Party has never got. They've never got the idea that the dignity of labour is about a worker having the right to have a say: having the right to have a say with their employer about their wages and conditions; having the right to associate with their workmates to organise together to work on issues of common interest—common interest to them as workers and a common interest between them and their employers. The National Party has never understood that. Sid Holland never understood it and he was good mates with Fintan Patrick Walsh but ever since then the National Party has been steeped in the industrial politics of the 1950s and they've never got out of it.There've been one or two exceptions I have to say. Jim Bolger did once and then he lurched off to the far right with the Employment Contracts Act but even then he's come back and apologised for it—and Peter Gordon who I think was probably one of the greatest industrial mediators from the National Party we ever had. But the modern National Party has never got that. The modern National Party actually has signed up to the far right view that workers should be crushed and it is OK to exploit workers and it's OK to take away the basic protections of fairness. That's the reality of the National Party in the 21st century.The reason they like the 90-day trial stuff is that it means that their employer mates—and there's only a few of them anyway. Some of their employer mates know that they can get away with sacking somebody with no good reason at all because that's what the 90-day thing does. Many employers certainly medium sized and larger employers who employ the bulk of the nation's workforce don't use the 90-day trial thing. They don't like it and they don't need it because they are good managers. They know how to manage performance and that's what they focus on.The one thing that the last speaker never spoke about was actually about the experience of working people. What do working people want apart from the good dignity of labour—a part of which is actually having a respectful relationship mutually respectful relationship with their managers? That's what you want to achieve and that's what this bill will do. It will start to restore mutually respectful relationships in the workplace once again—the right for workers to choose to belong to a union the right for workers to choose to bargain collectively and to have that choice respected. The National Party doesn't want to do that because they don't respect workers—have not for decades and do not now. This is a question of respect respect for workers and the environment and the climate that this Government is about is about making sure that productivity in the workplace which we all know we have to do a lot better at is built on mutually respectful employment relationships.This is a great bill and it will go a long way not only to remedying the big problem we have of a huge gap in incomes and wages—starting to lift wages at the bottom—but creating those great employment relationships workplace climate and workplace relationships that's going to lift productivity create wealth and benefit everybody.