Ardern Jacinda: Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Ardern Jacinda: Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
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JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) 
: 
 I feel as if I am in a vortex at the moment. The member in the chair Tau Henare spent quite some time trying to explain to the Committee why the Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill is incredibly important to him and to the Government yet he is the only Government member who has spoken on the bill. If there is such passion on that side of the Chamber I really would welcome a call from perhaps Sandra Goudie who gestured that she had once been a union delegate. I would genuinely like to hear Ms Goudie’s delegate stories. I would genuinely like to hear them. Perhaps she was a union delegate for the mangroves of the Hauraki Plains! I really would welcome hearing from her. In fact I would welcome any Government member speaking to this bill. I believe that they would only reinforce the eloquent comments made by the member in the chair who did refer to his bill once or twice once he was done with his insults. 
But I have an actual question for the member in the chair. I would really like to understand the origins of this bill a little better. He did allude to his knowledge of the union movement and his history in the union movement but actually he is trying to debate a point that we are not debating. We are not debating that there is anything wrong with the use of secret ballots. In fact the reason that we on our side allowed this bill to go to a select committee in the first place was that we acknowledged that secret ballots were common union practice. We therefore had no fear of this issue being discussed. But it became more and more obvious to us that this legislation was unnecessary and that in fact it had the ability to create a distortionary effect. We are not debating the relevance of secret ballots here I would say to the member. So I would like to hear from his perspective some genuine examples some real-life recent cases that obviously have been brought to his attention. I fail to see why he is driving this bill unless he has had some experiences or cases brought to him. Perhaps if he shared those with the Committee that would improve our understanding of his motives because at the moment I am not clear on his motives in relation to this bill. I think it is interesting to dig down beneath it. As we on this side have said secret ballots are common practice. We have members on this side who have recent experience of that process amongst workers. 
So I would really like the member to explain in this title clause debate what is driving this legislation. If I were to suggest a new title for this bill in this debate maybe it would be “Bill Looking for a Problem Bill” because at the moment I have not heard clearly articulated what the issue is. I can see the Chair looking at me graciously expecting me to speak directly to clause 1 and that is why I will bring in at this point my ridiculous alternative titles—if the Committee can bear with me. So there is one: “Bill Looking for a Problem Bill”. I would also like to throw out the option of “Bill Reinforcing Old Prejudices Bill”. 
Perhaps the title should be “Contradictory Bill” because ultimately the member has tried to tell us that somehow this bill will improve the process. We are saying that secret ballots already occur; he is trying to require them by legislation. To me that seems slightly contradictory to the usual perspective that a member of National would take on such matters. If we can prove that it is happening generally why would the member wish to entrench it unnecessarily into law and to create unnecessary red tape? National prides itself as being a bastion against red tape yet when it comes to the union movement it seems to take a completely different view. Perhaps instead we could call the bill the “I Didn’t Wish to Explore Voluntary Codes Bill” because every other time I have seen the potential for regulation come in the first thing that someone who looks at these things from the perspective of business would say is “Let us do it as a voluntary code. Let us see whether we can bring it about through compromise through a collective approach.” Actually that is what the unions do. They have their own democratic way of operating. They abide by their own written constitutions. That is how it works. 
Again I ask any member of National to contribute to this debate.