Moroney Sue: Employment Relations Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee 
Moroney Sue: Employment Relations Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee 
[Volume:651;Page:409] 
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
 Mr Chair first of all I congratulate you on your appointment because it is the first time I have been able to speak in this Chamber since you have been appointed to your position. I will address you for just the first couple of minutes because you of course are in your first 90 days in this position and I would expect that if you were taken aside by Parliament— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: The member cannot bring the Chair into the debate. 
SUE MORONEY 
: It was deliberate. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: I warned earlier on that you cannot use the word “you”; you cannot bring me into the debate. 
SUE MORONEY 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I am actually specifically addressing you. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Well you cannot address me. We are addressing Part 1 of this bill and the member should confine her comments and debate to Part 1. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: You can talk about Gerry though; he is stuffing up his 90 days. 
Nathan Guy 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. The member Darren Hughes has moved out of his seat to interject and under the Standing Orders a member may not move from his or her seat in order to have a clearer spot to interject from. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Mr Chairperson I have some useful information for you. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: I do not need any information. The member can shift to anywhere within the Labour seats but he cannot shift to make interjections from a seat that gives him an advantage over the one where he would normally sit. We will move on. 
SUE MORONEY 
: In the Committee stage of a bill we would normally be referring to the select committee process and talking about the submissions and what had come back to us from the select committee. In talking about Part 1 including the purpose of this bill of course we cannot talk about what happened in the select committee on this bill because there has not been a select committee process. I was on the select committee during the term of the last Parliament when the member’s bill that was similar to this bill but was not this bill was actually considered by the select committee. But it was not the same consideration that there would have been of this bill because no one had the opportunity for example to debate or present a submission on the issue of how this measure would affect small businesses. So no one has had the opportunity to tell us that small businesses will actually suffer as a result of this bill because they will not be able to compete with large businesses which of course can attract the sort of staff who want job security and stability. Those small businesses have not had the opportunity to come to the select committee to talk about their issues.  
Organisations are running red hot in pumping out press releases because they do not have the ability to participate through the normal democratic process. They are pumping out press statements because that is their only opportunity to be heard. This Parliament has stopped organisations from following the normal democratic process so groups like the New Zealand Federation of Business and Professional Women have put out press statements. What did the federation have to say? It stated: “We have worked hard to improve the status of women in New Zealand over the past 70 years and to hear that New Zealand might soon have a law that would allow employers to fire an employee without reason or redress horrifies us.” The federation is horrified at this law. It further states: “Employers should have robust employment processes and administer them competently to ensure they employ the right person rather than rely on being able to sack someone if they find they got it wrong.” That press statement was released by Mrs Faye Gardiner who is the president of the Federation of Business and Professional Women.  
Another organisation that has had to pump out a press release because it has not had the opportunity to address this bill through the normal democratic select committee process is the New Zealand Educational Institute. We all heard what Anne Tolley promised the institute when she talked about teachers and that has been an issue of some contention in this debate. Well this is what the institute has said: “Thousands of schools and early childhood centres will be affected by the government’s ‘Fire at Will’ bill which is being pushed through parliament today under urgency.” The institute understands the employment relationship; it knows that teachers in thousands of schools and early childhood centres will be affected by this measure. The institute now knows that Anne Tolley did not tell it the truth when she went to its conference. The institute has further stated: “Many teachers and principals move to gain promotion but they would be reluctant to move to a new job where there was no certainty of employment for the first 90 days. The law will jeopardise professional and career development and make it even more difficult for small rural and remote schools and centres to attract experienced staff.”  
I will talk a little about what we did hear during the submission process on the member’s bill about the purpose of this measure. My colleagues have quite rightly said that far and away most of the submissions were opposed to this measure. New Zealanders believe in fairness for everyone. It does not matter whether it is an employee’s first day 20th day or 20th year in a job—New Zealanders believe in fairness. This bill takes away workers’ rights and the Minister of Labour Kate Wilkinson has still not addressed that issue. How can she stand up and say this bill does not take away workers’ rights when it clearly strips away workers’ right to take a personal grievance? It clearly strips away their right to go to the Employment Relations Authority. I ask the Minister to explain how this bill does not take away the rights of employees who work for a small employer in the first 90 days of their employment.