Carter John: Holidays Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Carter John: Holidays Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:614;Page:10542] 
JOHN CARTER (National—Northland) 
: 
 I want to make a contribution in this debate and I want to do so for this reason. I have listened to the contributions made by a number of my colleagues and indeed a number of the other members who have spoken in this Committee and I want to take a little bit of a different angle on this debate from this perspective. 
We can talk about the individual impact this measure has on businesses as my good friend and colleague Lindsay Tisch has just explained. We can talk about the impact that it is likely to have on small businesses. For the many tourism operators and small businesses in Northland it will be devastating and will put a huge strain on them and some of them will struggle to survive. There is no question that a number of them will downsize and reduce staff as a consequence. Another outcome will be that a number of employees find they do not get wage increases over the next 3 or 4 years—we should not forget that this measure does not take place for 4 or 5 years. But what worries me about this whole aspect is that this measure is another cost in our society and on our economy. It is a cost right across our nation. We have to ask ourselves whether this country can afford this sort of cost at this time. 
The problem we have with this economy is that it still survives off two things. One is the primary sector primarily—our farmers foresters tourism operators and so on. They are the backbone of our country and that is an absolute fact of life whether or not we like it. The other thing that is driving our economy—when we look at what is happening with our economy we see that it is buoyant compared with those of a number of countries—is the building boom. That has been brought about because of a number of factors one of them being the immigration that we have had. 
Pansy Wong 
: A good thing. 
JOHN CARTER 
: Absolutely! Somewhere along the line when the Minister of Labour Helen Clark or the Government are considering these sorts of things they need to have a look at the total impact they have on our country’s whole economy. I wonder whether the Minister can tell us whether she has contemplated what sort of impact this measure will have on the whole of the economy and whether it will drive some more productivity into it. Will it actually result in a benefit to our country or will it be seen as a negative? Will businesses and the whole sector that actually produces income for this country benefit or will it become a barrier? While I accept that there may be an argument that perhaps the workers themselves will feel better off if they have an extra week’s leave there is a cost to them because they have to be able to afford that week for a start. 
That is the first thing. The second thing is what happens to those businesses that are expected to be productive and produce the goods that we sell and trade overseas to earn income for our country so that we can pay for these things. I wonder whether the Minister is able to give us any facts and figures on the negative impact that it is likely to have on our productivity level. I doubt whether that has been done at all. This whole bill has been driven by Matt Robson and a minor party that is now so minor that it often does not even have a presence in Parliament. Worse and for some reason that we do not know a promise that was made prior to the election that there would not be 4 weeks’ holiday has now been broken and that is now to be implemented. My having said that it is a bit smoke and mirrors because we are 4 or 5 years away from anyone being a recipient of it. In the meantime why can people not negotiate 4 weeks’ holidays if that is what they want? If they are good enough and have the skills and the background of course they will be able to negotiate it with the employers. 
But I come back to the simple theme of my 5-minute contribution and make this point: can we be sure that the country will benefit as a consequence of 4 weeks’ leave being put in? We know there will be some individuals who benefit from it because people will get an extra week’s holiday and that is fair enough. But overall it is more than likely that this provision will be a negative not a positive. There is the argument that people will be more productive because they are more relaxed and so on but I doubt it.